Is It Time To Think About Civ4?

[tniem]

If people want to do a new Civ list, then thats up to them. It is probably too soon but hopefully we as a community have learned from the first list. In that we gave tons of suggestions ideas and there was no way we would ever get that included in the game. It would have been too bloated. In their attempt to satisfy us they made a game with a lot of problems.

What we need to do in this next list is to come up with the ideas - give them to Firaxis but then do something extra. We need to give them an overall direction on how we want it done. Now this is going to lead to a ton of debate but we need to say what we expect. They can't put every idea in (hell, most ideas in the list were contrary to another idea on the list.). So we need to say what we are looking for, an overall theme, an overall mission of the game. Forget all the bells and whistles, we are looking for a fun game. That when it is all said and done would make a Civ IV list worth it.

[Alex]

Originally posted by tniem

What we need to do in this next list is to come up with the ideas - give them to Firaxis but then do something extra. We need to give them an overall direction on how we want it done. (...) So we need to say what we are looking for, an overall theme, an overall mission of the game. Forget all the bells and whistles, we are looking for a fun game. That when it is all said and done would make a Civ IV list worth it.

I agree. But there is a problem. Let's say we, the community, can agree about what we want from the game -- beside the "fun" aspect, which is quite subjective. Even if such concordance would be possible, I don't think that we could give them anything but general directions... things so broad and encompassing that would not be of any use to the actual game design.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by TKG
suggestion #2:

make SMAC 2 instead. suggestion #1 still applies though

Ooooh, now I like that idea! I would love to see a SMAC2!

[Dauphin]

I guess I should give SMAC another try... just never got into that game.

[Provost Harrison]

Well I could imagine what they could do with SMAC 2. It had so many great concepts that were never used in Civ3 such as social engineering, landmarks and unit workshop (although needs to be refined, the basic concept is a good one).

A lot of potential there...although it would just have to be a rehash of the SMAC story, and I don't know what the demand in general would be like...

[Tuberski]

Master of Magic II should be done first!!!!!

[Mercator]

It looks like they're gonna be busy.

How about MoMII, CivIV, SMAC2 and Col2 all rolled into one? I'm not sure what on earth that would look like, but it must be good.

[Tuberski]

MOM is older than the rest, so we have been waiting longer!

[Skanky Burns]

I'd like to see another MOM version.

[connorkimbro]

It's been YEARS and YEARS since colonization first came out. it was a GREAT game. And all the new technologies, ways of playing computer games, they could make an AWESOME colonization game that would be fresh and new, and most importantly (for us) it would be fun, and most importantly (for them) it would sell. Colonization 2 gets my vote.

[tniem]

Colonization II is my suggestion as well. But it doesn't sound like they will be doing that until after the whole 3d thingy.

I don't think that we could give them anything but general directions... things so broad and encompassing that would not be of any use to the actual game design.

That is kind of what I mean. We should give them a couple different ways they could go with it that would be fun and incorporate fresh ideas. That way they could choose from three different ways to make the game or something like that. Otherwise, we (and when I say we that is with the nod that I had nothing to do with the prior list) will send them hundreds of suggestions again and few will be implemented properly or effectively.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Rasbelin
Well, I would suggest Stella Polaris before SMAC II as StP is already under work, while there's no information about a possible version 2 of SMAC.

Again, as I said, not that SP isn't a good idea, but why have a zillion of OSS projects all floating around, all in some unfinished state?

There's only so many programmers, so why not concentrate on making one of the projects work?

[Urban Ranger]

Firaxis is said to be working on some XCOM sequel anyway.

[Dis]

what about civ5?

[Rasbelin]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

Again, as I said, not that SP isn't a good idea, but why have a zillion of OSS projects all floating around, all in some unfinished state?

Errhhhmmm... that's abit biased. Not all of them are in an unifinished status. Take Linux, mySQL, PHP, FreeCiv, OpenBSD, OpenSSL and OpenOffice as an example. Are they "unifinished"? Nope. Neither can you say that only fully commercial products like Windows, Access, WordPerfect and PSP would be in a finished status.

Oh, and it's not SP as singleplayer. StP is correct.

Anyway...

If you have a look at how many open source TBS games can be found on SourceForge, you will see that there's currently 523 registered projects in that category. Some of them are dead like GGS, but many of them are steadily under development, but still progressing.

There's only so many programmers, so why not concentrate on making one of the projects work?

In theory that would mean everyone interested should work on FreeCiv and their pure SMAC clone, based on FreeCiv. Nah, that's far from interesting. 1. FreeCiv is very complete after all. 2. The SMAC clone doesn't offer anything really new. 3. There's already people working on it. But in general it's an issue of diversity. At least I can't find any other project as interesting as Stella Polaris.