Thanks to FIRAXIS: The Diaries Are Great!

[yin26]

I know this has been said many times on the board here, but after reading the latest installment, I think this is a wonderful "adventure" Firaxis is taking us on. It's quite rare to see glimpses of what's going on behind the scenes like this--at least this early in the process.

In my mind, this will generate FAR more interest and appreciation of the game in the long-run than a huge media blitz a few weeks before release. Hats off to you guys for taking this approach.

Anyway, my take on what would make the best game:

"Age of Dinosaurs"

[MarkG]

aargh, not another "Age of" game! please!

the diaries are great, but it would also be great to know some of the things that are certain. so far all we've been presented with are the choices(with some implications, that is true)...

[Bossman]

Yin! WTF has happened to you, we used to slag FIRAXIS off big time even when they did something good! I cant believe I am actually reading this!

[Pythagoras]

yeah Firaxis!

[MichaeltheGreat]

Your right, Yin, I agree. I can't wait for the part when they tell us about the padded purple suit Special Ability, or the Rodent-ray(tm) Secret Project.

[Adm.Naismith]

MarkG is right: diaries are a good idea, but Firaxis is not using them to better explain the brainstorming of making a (good?) game. They are using to raise consensus about (unpopolar?) choices, and add some hype to an almost empty announce about Dinosaurus.

Maybe Firaxis will steer into the right direction putting some real, definitive info into all that fog.

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Adm.Naismith AKA mcostant

[MarkG]

on the other hand, we are far away from release so in order to have something to keep people interested all this time(there have been three diaries in less than a month after all)...

[yin26]

Mark is right. Is too early for anything definitive. The game is still in its "foggy" stage, and it's fun to see just how these big issues are handled early on. Sure, I'd love to see more detail (heck, even daily updates from everybody on the team!), but at that point the diaries become a liability in terms of how much time they'd have to spend on it.

I'm sure the diaries will become more specific as time goes on. But for now, it's a really nice effort.

By the way, Mark: What's wrong with Age of Dinos? Turn-based games are great except for the multiplayer aspect, and I think people are growing to want great multiplayer. I'm one of those!

[MarkG]

classically, dear yin, it's the "age of" games that copy ideas from civ, not vice versa...
let's keep the tradition
[This message has been edited by MarkG (edited January 16, 2000).]

[RenderDrone]

Nice one Yin. Way to shrug it off. Roll with the punches. The dream of becoming a beta tester is getting closer. Although, I think you've cried wolf too many times in the past....

[yin26]

Markos,

True enough. I'll admit that after all this RTS I've been doing, a really well done TBS would be a great thing. But I would miss the multiplayer terribly.

Bossman and RenderDrone:

Many people, including you two, have pretended to understand my stance on Firaxis for a long time. But you've misunderstood it all the while. I don't care to rehash the past, so that's all I have to say.

As for being a beta tester, I don't have the time or the patience. Plus, I'm not qualified. I have no experience. And, to tell you the truth, I've had my share of playing buggy ("finished") games, so why would I want to play a buggy unfinished one? In fact, I won't be buying any games until at least the first round of patches come out and I can see the situation. I'm sure Dinos will be the same with me, though I think the open beta idea might well catch a lot of problems that (IMO) detracted from SMAC.

[RenderDrone]

nice save. no wonder they coined the terms "bull****" and "artist" together.

[yin26]

I also think a huge Dino Database would be a lot of fun. I'd love to be able to study the dinosaurs with in multi-media format. I'm sure that would be a pain for Firaxis to pull off, but it would certainly add something to the game.

Age of Kings (sorry Markos), for example, did a nice job of giving background on 15th century warfare. It wasn't even multi-media, actually, but it had nice hand sketches and great content. Overall, it made the game feel somehow more immersive.

(And though it probably would hurt to market Dinos as 'edutainment,' schools and parents wouldn't mind picking up a game full of great dino-facts.)

[Jeje2]

Yeah, I also like this idea of diary.

Well I just got an idea.
How could we make FIRAXIS release these "first tries" with the game itself?

Think about it. Sid makes always a proto as early as possible, so they can try and test. I would like to see one of these protos, heck why not both RTS and TBS protos.

btw. Yin I like your idea of multimedia.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Yin - the dino edutainment thing was already done in Evolution.