Is it Over?

[DogberryMan]

Sorry about the RGP thing meant RPG

[Wiglaf]

quote: actually, we also had smac....

It bombed. Say I'm a casual gamer concerned about the future of civ. SMAC does poorly (although I love the game, it fails to innovate), civ3 seems to have no one's attention, and ctp and ctp2 are also knockoffs of the original. Things are not looking good.

quote: You guys need to stop worrying. TBS is not dead nor will it ever die. About two years ago people said that RPG’s were dead.

RPG's were never really dead as a whole genre. The consoles had Zelda, FF, PSO, etc, etc. No way.

quote: BTW what do you guys mean by SMAC not being successful? It was on the top ten game sales forever, and it moved back up to 7th. True it might never have been the number one selling game, but it has had good sales for a looong time.

Ehh... it was on the top ten voting charts, not the top ten sales charts, if that's what you mean. It never had extended sales. It did fairly well, but civ2 - civ2 - toppled it by quite a bit. A big bit

[MarkG]

smac did not innovate?
borders, advanced diplomacy, 3d maps, customizable units, se, etc etc etc...

[Wiglaf]

quote: Originally posted by MarkG on 01-22-2001 08:21 PM smac did not innovate? borders, advanced diplomacy, 3d maps, customizable units, se, etc etc etc...

Oh it did innovate a good bit, but the general idea in the minds of most consumers and reviewers was "civ2 in space." Something more should have been done.

(Once again, I am not Bkeela!)
[This message has been edited by SMACed (edited January 22, 2001).]

[- Groucho -]

Luckily for me I disagree with you completely. So what if Civ3 has no buzz? They aren't even breathing on their first beta yet, let alone getting close to gold, so overwhelming buzz now would arguably be counter-productive (need an example? Warcraft 3, nuff said.) The teasers they are giving on their new website are a good start - typical marketing strategy - get the hard cores talking first and slowly ratchet up the hype till release date.

As for turn based strategy games being dead because of the lack of new titles ...

There is this game called go. You might have heard of it. It's a TBS game but the AIs suck on all the software implementations I've played so it never has gotten off the table top in a big way. It was invented something like three or four thousand years ago. The next really big TBS game after it was probably chess - which is maybe, what, 500(?) years old. Now, no really big TBS games (by big I mean millions of players) came along in the intervening period between go and chess but was TBS dead in the mean time? Of course not. It was just that no one came up with a really good game.

I'm not saying CivII is as good a game as chess or go, but I am saying that declaring a genre dead because of a few years without a big title is a bit silly. Things move a lot slower than you think. Just because CNN tries to convince us all to have the attention span of a gnat, doesn't mean we have to buy into it. Sit back, fire up CivII and play it again. It's still a good game. Maybe it doesn't have all the latest bells and whistles, but go is just a bunch of rocks.

[Lord Maxwell]

SMAC didn't innovate very much, it was a facelift on an old game. (Terraform code more or less unchanged for a long time, AI is terrbily, horribly bad.)

I doubt Civ III will be very much better. There is for an example no real reason to play on a torus instead of a globe, just lazy programming. Sid is an old man, he should retire to being a CEO and leave it to a younger crowd to take the game forward.

I will buy Civ III, and I will play it alot, but I am pretty much convinced it won't be great. (Compared to other present day games it will not be close to the earthshake caused by the original Civ. Especially if the AI remains as weak as it was there.)

And early hype is good hype. The best selling title ever was wildly hyped even before it went into beta, and the beta was delayed, and the game delayed, and so on. And it pre ordered at 2M copies. More than most games ever sell, years in the bargain bin included. Say what you want about Blizzards games, but they can build hype.

[Wiglaf]

quote: Luckily for me I disagree with you completely. So what if Civ3 has no buzz? They aren't even breathing on their first beta yet, let alone getting close to gold, so overwhelming buzz now would arguably be counter-productive (need an example? Warcraft 3, nuff said.) The teasers they are giving on their new website are a good start - typical marketing strategy - get the hard cores talking first and slowly ratchet up the hype till release date.

WC3 will be more of a hit than civ3. Why? It's action oriented and an RTS. Those sell like hotcakes. I doubt your marketing theory is correct, please name some games that pulled it off.

quote: There is this game called go. You might have heard of it. It's a TBS game but the AIs suck on all the software implementations I've played so it never has gotten off the table top in a big way. It was invented something like three or four thousand years ago. The next really big TBS game after it was probably chess - which is maybe, what, 500(?) years old. Now, no really big TBS games (by big I mean millions of players) came along in the intervening period between go and chess but was TBS dead in the mean time? Of course not. It was just that no one came up with a really good game.

Chess is thousands and thousands of years old, not five hundred. And TBS was dead on the computer until civ came and went.

quote: I'm not saying CivII is as good a game as chess or go, but I am saying that declaring a genre dead because of a few years without a big title is a bit silly. Things move a lot slower than you think. Just because CNN tries to convince us all to have the attention span of a gnat, doesn't mean we have to buy into it. Sit back, fire up CivII and play it again. It's still a good game. Maybe it doesn't have all the latest bells and whistles, but go is just a bunch of rocks.

Maybe you're right, but I'm not just talking about now. I'm concerned about the fact that we only have one tbs game coming out soon (civ3) and the last two were gameplay stinkers and the other was a sales failure.

quote: SMAC didn't innovate very much, it was a facelift on an old game. (Terraform code more or less unchanged for a long time, AI is terrbily, horribly bad.)

Oh, it innovated, it was just very very similar to civ2.

quote: I doubt Civ III will be very much better. There is for an example no real reason to play on a torus instead of a globe, just lazy programming. Sid is an old man, he should retire to being a CEO and leave it to a younger crowd to take the game forward.

No younger crowd cares about civ.

quote: I will buy Civ III, and I will play it alot, but I am pretty much convinced it won't be great. (Compared to other present day games it will not be close to the earthshake caused by the original Civ. Especially if the AI remains as weak as it was there.)

*crosses fingers*

I really hope civ3 does well and the genre is reinvented. But computer gamers have fickle agendas, one minute something is good and the next it's considered ancient.

[Bblue]

Somewhat off topic but....

If anyone is looking for a (IMHO) fun, balanced TBS game they should check out 'Titans of Steel' This game is based off the old FASA game mechforce and an older freeware program by the same name.
Basically its a turned-based tactical stradagy game where can design your own mechs, advance your pilots, then bet the dog out of an opposing team of mechs.

and the best part is....
IT'S FREE!! so if you don't like it all you wasted was the download time.

While the current version is set up for play vs the AI and for player vs. player over a LAN connection, there is also beta code in the program that can allow play over the internet. The game designers are currently VERY active and while working on several things one is getting the internet player-to-player mode up and running.
while the graphic are pretty basic and documentation is sparse, the game is ecellent and is the ONLY game that has ever came close to holding my gaming attention as long as the CIV series.

Check it out at www.titansofsteel.de


Just an helpful note from an old-timer that stops by every other blue moon

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"Power does not corrupt; it merely attracts the corruptable"

[Wiglaf]

Mods? Get this spammer some justice

[The Commodore]

<<<-----is Stars! fan,good game,that.


As a RTS and TBS fan,I think that TBS is still live and kicking...RTS is a good MP format, but for SP, TBS will allways rule.

[Wiglaf]

Yeah, RTS is worthless on SP, no question there.

The sad thing is that SMAC/Civ/TBS games aren't that great on SP, either. The AIs can be beaten if you learn the right moves, hurting potential replay value with veterens of the genre.

*sigh*

[Bkeela]

quote: Oh, and I'm not trying to be like the SMAC hater Bkeela - just a bit curious.

Hmmm, I love SMAC, it's SMACX I dislike.

Bkeela.

[Wiglaf]

*Gulp*

Bkeela's back!

*Gulp*

I thought you made a thread "people still play smac?" which trashed everything about the game, from its replay factor to its core status as a classic... am I wrong?

*draws lightsaber and stares into the eyes of darth vader*

[Bkeela]

Well, I don't play it anymore, but I still like it if that makes any sense. I started a game about a month ago, and midway through I just lost interest in continuing. I've truly played it to utter death, yet I can still appreciate it as a great game.
I think the point of that thread I did was not so much putting the game down, but amazement that people are still excited about SMAC. [I can't even comprehend people who are still into Civ 2!]
About the only game I have that I could honestly say has great replayability value is Master of Orion II.

Bkeela.

[Wiglaf]

You can't beleive people are in to civ2? Why? Because it's old?

I don't understand, please explain. It gets me pretty upset when old games = bad games. I suppose people don't like thinking they're the only ones in the world playing a specific thing that is uncool at the momemt, best game in the world or not. And in civ2's case, thousands are still in to it, so explain why you are so amazed.

*Prays Bkeela isn't his father*



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The fault lies not in our SMAC, but in our stars.
~ Vanguard, February 2, 2000.