In-House Preview Online: Part 5

DanQ · February 6, 2003, 12:41

The fifth in a six-part detailed preview of Master of Orion III is now online. This five-page article, accompanied by ten screenshots, is written by Apolyton CS Co-Owner/Administrator Daniel Quick. It is entitled "Not All Quiet On The Galactic Front".

In late December, 2002, an advanced beta copy of [MoO3 arrived in my mailbox. Since then, I have had the opportunity to examine this much-anticipated turn-based strategy title first hand – both inside and outside of the gameplay itself, says Quick. What has been posted today is the fifth of six installments of this feature. In this edition, it's truly not all quiet on the galactic front with a brief engagement discussed followed by a rundown of the 'Technology' screen and a return to diplomacy from the perspective of the 'Foreign Matrix'.

On behalf of the Apolyton CS staff and administration, I would like to thank MoO3 Producer Constantine Hantzopoulos and the rest of the game's team at both Infogrames Interactive and Quicksilver Software for this opportunity.

As a bonus, fourteen pieces of mostly never-before-seen concept art have been compiled into one easy to browse collection as apart of this edition's screenshot gallery. The concluding piece of this ongoing feature, Part 6, will be posted next Thursday barring any unforeseen circumstances. Comments on this article are welcomed in this thread.

--------------
Dan; Apolyton CS

Main_Brain · February 6, 2003, 13:00

Wohoo.

Foreign Matrix ("Turn 1") doesnt work for me though

//and posting the Install screen ist just plain Evil! :=)

kalbear · February 6, 2003, 13:13

Zeemac is not the name of a race/species - it's the name of the leader of the race. In this case, I believe that's a Tachidi.

You can clearly see 'Hithoru' being a Sakkra as well.

I'd hope that DanQ would correct this misinformation, especially now that places like PA are linking to the preview.

Jack Frost · February 6, 2003, 13:30

. . . . I just give up. The bottom line: Dan didn't play the game.

DanQ · February 6, 2003, 13:32

Originally posted by kalbear
Zeemac is not the name of a race/species - it's the name of the leader of the race. In this case, I believe that's a Tachidi.

You can clearly see 'Hithoru' being a Sakkra as well.

I'd hope that DanQ would correct this misinformation, especially now that places like PA are linking to the preview.

My apologies. I appreciate your pointing these out. They were the result of unintentional copy/paste errors on my part and I have corrected them.

In fact, I had realized these errors at about the time you posted the above message. As such, you likely saw the older versions of the affected pages shortly before they were modified.

Again, sorry about that folks!

--------------
Dan; Apolyton CS

Main_Brain · February 6, 2003, 13:33

I think on Page 5 a new paragraph misses before 'Advances'

DanQ · February 6, 2003, 13:39

Originally posted by Main_Brain
Wohoo.

Foreign Matrix ("Turn 1") doesnt work for me though

I have corrected the link to the full-sized version of the "Foreign Matrix ("Turn 1")" screen (a minor HTML issue). Thanks for the heads-up.

I think on Page 5 a new paragraph misses before 'Advances'

Ah! HTML code fixed here too.

//and posting the Install screen ist just plain Evil! :=)

---------------
Dan; Apolyton CS

Zero_Washu · February 6, 2003, 13:44

Gee, not only can the reviewer not write he can't even play the game well.

Who would have thought that?

I was actually expecting some decent screenshots this time, but damn if this wasn't the most disappointing one of the series.

Sketches should have been kept to the first article or perhaps a summary article, they have nothing to do with this phase of the review.

Main_Brain · February 6, 2003, 14:08

and yet they return everytime to read the next one :P
Ah the downsides of no censorship..

Alexfrog · February 6, 2003, 14:10

QW-314-LOEH is not an unplayable race! It is the name of an empire of the Meklar.....who attacked your scout. Your scout couldnt detect them because you dont have sufficient detection technology....its not like QS is trying to make you always fight unknown battles....detection tech is important.

Similarly the Hithoru mentioned last time was an empire name.

The only "unplayable races" are the magnate races who you get colonies of, and the New Orions. The only non-playable race that can have an empire is the New Orions.

Just wanted to make that clear, and I hope the preveiw is updated to not keep calling these all "unplayable races" when they are simply the name of the EMPIRE of one of the playable races.

Grumbold · February 6, 2003, 14:18

Interesting reading Dan. A pity that you didn't have time to build a new fleet to reinvestigate the area where your unarmed scout foolishly decided to blockade a whole planet

Minor quibble: in this and previous sections of your review your spellchecker seems to like turning 'a part' into 'apart' which of course has a different meaning.

ggorrell · February 6, 2003, 14:23

I feel like the woman on the only Wendys commercial "Where's the beef?" This review has no new information. I could have written a more interesting preview of the game, and I don't even have the game! Even the screenshots were disappointing this time.

Obviously the author did not play the game long enough to review it, if he only got into one battle, and that was a scout stumbling into another empire!

I hope that the last segment of this preview is better.

Mr.Moustache · February 6, 2003, 14:38

Originally by DanQ
"Perhaps the most aggravating part of the whole encounter was running into one of those non-playable races I spoke about in Part 4. They were identified only by a rather cryptic designation: QW-314-LOEH."

On the first page, last paragraph is the above quote.

Like Alex said, QW-314-LOEH is the NAME of a certain EMPIRE (which I think is either Meklar or Cynoid in this case), like "Apolyton" is the name of YOUR empire, and not race. So if you picked the Humans to play, and named your empire "Apolyton", then your race isn't "Apolyton", its still Humans.

For example, say I was playing a game and I ran into an empire called "Apolyton". We then decided to talk about a non aggression, I would then know (by the race animation, or picture) that this empire is a Klackon race. (which the Klackons are a playable race)

The only non playable race is The New Orions, and there are magnate races (like the Alkari, Darloks etc) that can't make ships and expand, you can colonize those worlds and those magnate races become a part of your empire.

I hope you understand what I'm trying to say, because in my opinion thats a pretty big mistake in those previews.

Alexfrog · February 6, 2003, 14:57

magnate*, not magnet, but yeah....I agree, its a big mistake.
It needs to be fixed....since most of the people reading this preveiw arent going to be those of us who spend lots of time over at IGMOO and know everything already...

Magnate: 1. A person of rank; a noble or grandee; a person of influence or distinction in any sphere.

I would consider it an odd choice to name the unplayable races....since they are "minor" races.... but I guess they play a large role in the game still. I guess they are the most influential of the various lesser forms of life found spread around the galaxy, (or of course the previously powerful but now much weakened races that were destroyed by the new orions)

LDiCesare · February 6, 2003, 16:00

No info on fights there.
Fights, ship design, were a VERY important part of MOO.
Fights have become real time, which is a HUGE change.
Isn't it possible to have SOME info about it?
You mayn't like to play fights, but they do and will occur, and half of your research is geared around them anyway. I want info on fights to decide if I play the game. You give two screenshots and the surprising info that scouts are easily killed by warships. Whoah!

Alexfrog · February 6, 2003, 16:09

DiCesare, you should check out the Beta Tester's game and battle descriptions on the infogrames moo site..

http://www.ina-community.com/forums/...hreadid=239742

you have to register to read the forums, but its worth it. Some very well written, exciting, informative stuff there

And from people who have actually played the game a lot and faught real battles! not accidentally ran their scout into an enemy colony and had it destroyed....

Also, your sig mentions you are in to low micromanagement and good AI....

in a question and answer session at orion sector, when asked "what are your 3 favorite things about the game", fully half the betatesters replying responded that they loved the AI control of their colonies (i.e. that you could let it do lots of the micromanagement work for you and it would DO A GOOD JOB!!!!)

kalbear · February 6, 2003, 16:25

Though I would dearly love to hear Chaos Avatar do an AAR of that battle:

"Sir, we are approaching an unknown planet. What should we.."
"FULL SPEED AHEAD! Man the cannon!"

"But, sir, we are an unarmed ship. Our mission is to seek out new life, explore..."

"There'll be none of that naysaying around these parts! It's that kind of can't-do attitude that made us not be able to simulate the Zeemac and Hithoru races!"

"Err...sir - those aren't races. Those are emperor names. I think..."

"Hah! Next thing you'll tell me is that we're not Apolytonians, and we came from some mythical 'human' race! Never mind - ensign, you're now in charge. Charge cannon and prepare to blockade that planet!"

"Sir, the planet might not be inhabited - and if it is, blockading is considered to be an act of war by many races. Should we not consider, say, scouting the system first?"

"With our military might, I'd like to see them try and declare war on us! Nothing can defeat the Apolytonian Space Ship Invincible!"

"Sir, this is the ship Intangible. And we stopped using Apolytonian Space Ship as a designator after someone pointed out the acronym wasn't...well...flattering..."

"SILENCE! Am I surrounded by fools? Ensign, you're relieved. Get me your subordinate - he's in charge!"

"Sir, this is a three man scouting vessel..there are no other men."

"Fine, fine, drown me in legislative details. Have we blockaded the planet yet?"

"Yes sir. There are reports of a Meklar civilization down there. Emperor OE-18D9-24K21 is hailing us."

"You mean the OE race is hailing us? Excellent...another race we have no way of simulating. Tell them that all their base are belong to us!"

"Sir, there's an incoming message from the Emperor. "

Emperor: "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? DON'T ATTACK THEM!"

"The emperor is obviously under the influence of this evil race of OE...whatever the hell their race is. Kill them all!"

Alexfrog · February 6, 2003, 16:33

Roland also put many of them up on apolyton...

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=76060

Mr.Moustache · February 6, 2003, 16:42

Originally posted by Alexfrog
magnate*, not magnet, but yeah....I agree, its a big mistake.

Oops, thanks for pointing that out. I don't know what I was thinking lol. Oh well, go brain...

Scybeam · February 6, 2003, 16:42

What I don't understand is the main screens. Why are there 2 main screens? Does one or the other randomly load when the game starts???

Dinamarth · February 6, 2003, 17:03

"The above serves as the most devastating example of the less-than-positive consequences stemming from my decision to employ as a minimal number of minimally armed ships as possible."

Say what?

"As such, it is not long before you can quickly correlate the line colour to remind yourself what your race's position is as it pertains to another."

I'm pretty sure there is a better way to describe that...

"After being forced into a battle with opponents I didn't even know where there let alone prepared to engage. But I'm not bitter. At all. Honest. "

You are bitter because you lost a scout ship? Bitter? Get a grip. Scout ships are expendable.

If you've had the game (or a beta) for about two months, how come you've only played half a game? And what in the world drove you to write a whole series of previews based on this half game session?

I'm sorry (for QSI, IG and MoO3 mainly, but also for the people who have actually read all the drivel you've written), but this has got to be some of the worst waste of bandwidth I've ever seen...

Darkrenown · February 6, 2003, 17:28

Despite the post above mine, I didn't think part 5 was too bad. If the other 4 had been written to that standard I would never have bothered complaing about the writing. Having said that:

DAN! Those are not non playable races! They are EMPIRE NAMES OF PLAYABLE RACES. EMPIRE NAMES! E-M-P-I-R-E N-A-M-E-S! Ok?

Adacore · February 6, 2003, 17:43

Good stuff - i particularly like the concept art

I'd have preferred if you'd been a bit more militaristic - i doubt a single scout shows off the MoO3 combat engine and graphics very well.

I took the liberty of editing it a little, and posting it on the IG forum, hope you don't mind (if you object i can delete the thread). Here is the link:

http://www.ina-community.com/forums/...hreadid=259491

Dinamarth · February 6, 2003, 17:51

Originally posted by Darkrenown
Despite the post above mine, I didn't think part 5 was too bad. If the other 4 had been written to that standard I would never have bothered complaing about the writing.

How is it even possible to make something worse than this part, while still using English?

Stuie · February 6, 2003, 18:12

Guess I was hoping for more about the nuts and bolts of combat, something that actually describes how combat works, what the player's choices are, more screens, etc. Too bad Dan didn't get into combat more; maybe we actually would have learned something.

And please don't point me to the BTs; I want facts, not some sci-fi author wannabe.

Kapeman · February 6, 2003, 18:21

Originally posted by kalbear
Though I would dearly love to hear Chaos Avatar do an AAR of that battle:

OMFG! That is a scream! I love it!

Alexfrog · February 6, 2003, 18:24

well, in various threads at IGMOO, the BTs have explained about ship sizes, task forces, battle commands, weapon types, ship design, mobilization, and loads of other stuff.....

The info is there (spread through a number of different threads....you'll find a lot in the Strategy/Gameplay and After action reports sections on IGMOO), but if you dont want the BT's....then there isnt anywhere else to get the info....because they are the only ones who have been giving us useful stuff.

Also a bunch of stuff in the "Prerelease Forums -> Space Combat" forum.

Sci-fi author wannabes, lol. They are an entertainging read and gave lots of good info...

Adacore · February 6, 2003, 18:26

Kalbear: ROFL - excellent!!! funniest thing i've read in days.

viciouscycle · February 6, 2003, 18:39

@kalbear: That was hysterical!

I didn't especially like this section of the preview for the same reason that I didn't like the first three: it is abstracted, detached from the game. I would like to see something more along the lines of section four where there were direct conections between the descriptions and explanations and what was actually going on in the game.

The combat information was laughable. How about getting into a skirmish with some ships that have shields and armor and weapons?

Just a suggestion.

Alexfrog · February 6, 2003, 18:44

what!? a real combat? no...

far better to spend 4 weeks advertising that part 5 will cover combat, and then just have your scout get killed in one shot by a warship the first time you encounter a new race.

wow, now I know all about moo3 combat! what an in depth preveiw!