In order to understand the process of making sequels you have to look at what a sequel is. Think of the Star Wars movies, the LOTR triology, many sucessful RPG computer games. In these cases you had simularities, i.e. settings, charactors, mechanics, and so forth, but the story changed. Even bad sequels, like the Rocky movies, pretend to be new stories.
OTOH, sometimes things get remade. Old movies and computer games, and songs. Same basic story, prettier and technically up to date, but basically, the same, a remake.
So, you have two things, sequels and remakes.
Civ3 is not a sequel. All of those who expected that are discontent.
Civ3 is a remake. And a lot of people are discontent. Why?
Think of all the remakes that you have seen, movies for example. Which were the worst? The ones that changed the original the most. When people love something and you change it, thats bad, the original is holy and those who transgress can only expect fire and brimstone.
Most of the people who like the current version of Civ, the third, are probably not the people who were diehard fans of one and two.
Another reason that Civ3 engenders such discontent is that Firaxis incorporated ideas from all over the place. Ideas from forums, ideas from god knows where, but listen folks, too many cooks spoil the soup.
The best games are basically the product of one mind, I am speaking concept and gameplay, not bells and whistles, sound and graphic. The core of a game is the story and gameplay. The rest is window dressing. Does anyone think the Sid Meier's great games were designed by committee?
Firaxis could have decided they were going to remake the remake (Civ2), tweaked the gameplay by adding some of the great fixes like the combat changes and then wrapped it up with nice state of the art packaging. That would have been okay for a remake. But instead, they gutted the gameplay elements that people loved in the name of better AI. Better AI is the ultimate oxymoron. You can't build a game around the AI, humans will figure it out very quickly and then the game is a coaster, as Civ3 is. (just look at site traffic here and other Civ sites for proof, sales be damned) Then they added new stuff that was hardly tested and rushed it out the door. That is sad.
The other option, and the better one, would have been to do a sequel. Civ3: Return to Earth. Following up SMAC with a new story makes sense. Humanity evolves on Earth (Civ), flees the collapse of civilization to a new home in the stars (SMAC), then comes home to rebuild in the wasteland of the apocalypse. Not a new story, but it would work.
Instead, we are in our season of discontent.
OTOH, sometimes things get remade. Old movies and computer games, and songs. Same basic story, prettier and technically up to date, but basically, the same, a remake.
So, you have two things, sequels and remakes.
Civ3 is not a sequel. All of those who expected that are discontent.
Civ3 is a remake. And a lot of people are discontent. Why?
Think of all the remakes that you have seen, movies for example. Which were the worst? The ones that changed the original the most. When people love something and you change it, thats bad, the original is holy and those who transgress can only expect fire and brimstone.
Most of the people who like the current version of Civ, the third, are probably not the people who were diehard fans of one and two.
Another reason that Civ3 engenders such discontent is that Firaxis incorporated ideas from all over the place. Ideas from forums, ideas from god knows where, but listen folks, too many cooks spoil the soup.
The best games are basically the product of one mind, I am speaking concept and gameplay, not bells and whistles, sound and graphic. The core of a game is the story and gameplay. The rest is window dressing. Does anyone think the Sid Meier's great games were designed by committee?
Firaxis could have decided they were going to remake the remake (Civ2), tweaked the gameplay by adding some of the great fixes like the combat changes and then wrapped it up with nice state of the art packaging. That would have been okay for a remake. But instead, they gutted the gameplay elements that people loved in the name of better AI. Better AI is the ultimate oxymoron. You can't build a game around the AI, humans will figure it out very quickly and then the game is a coaster, as Civ3 is. (just look at site traffic here and other Civ sites for proof, sales be damned) Then they added new stuff that was hardly tested and rushed it out the door. That is sad.
The other option, and the better one, would have been to do a sequel. Civ3: Return to Earth. Following up SMAC with a new story makes sense. Humanity evolves on Earth (Civ), flees the collapse of civilization to a new home in the stars (SMAC), then comes home to rebuild in the wasteland of the apocalypse. Not a new story, but it would work.
Instead, we are in our season of discontent.
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