[C4:AC][Writing] Defining mission statement

[Mart]

For this reason also we need good leadership. One or three persons like - having final say in what and how things will be done. Have we elected anyone yet?

[Kataphraktoi]

Originally posted by Illuminatus

Draft of the Mission Statement

We, the project members agree to use all our talents and resources in order to create a modification of the Firaxis game Sid Meier's Civilization 4 which will attempt to emulate as accurately as possible all the aspects, the gameplay, the appearance and the atmosphere, of a previous Firaxis game, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. We shall not infringe on the Firaxis copyright while doing so and we will consult with Firaxis with the assistance of the Apolyton Civilization Site regarding the legal matters. We intend to call this project Civilization 4: Alpha Centauri.

Our goal is make an clone of the original game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and its expansion, Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire without changing or adding any gameplay elements. Our second goal is to correct the most obvious bugs in the original game and the expansion like social engineering rollover bugs.

We do not intend to make a SMAC 2 or make major changes to game mechanics of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. When completed, Civilization 4: Alpha Centauri will be the starting ground for user made SMAC sequels and remakes. When the project is completed, we intend to devote our time towards balancing and tuning of game mechanics.

As we believe this is the first total conversion for Sid Meier's Civilization 4, our progress will be documented to help any other Civilization 4 modders to follow our footsteps.

We will gladly accept help from the Civilization 4 modding community and we hope to coordinate our efforts with discoveries made by other modders in the Civilization 4 modding community.

Our project will be public, and we shall gladly recieve input from others, although the developers reserve the right not to be bound by popular opinion.


Comments, suggestions?

bold text shows corrections i would make. deleted some stuff-dont put reasons on mission statements-it allows people a foot in the door to overturn the rule

As we believe this is the first total conversion for Sid Meier's Civilization 4, our progress will be documented to help any other Civilization 4 modders to follow our footsteps.

by whom?

[Kataphraktoi]

Ideally speaking, we should attempt a complete clone of the game.

Practically speaking this is what we are going to end up with.

must agree with darsnan and senethro here...

If we open this Pandora's Box only once, we risk all sorts of repurcussions as people start to diplomacize and stump/ harrangue/ argue for all of their own little pet peeves to be included into the game: we absolutely do not want to go there!

[Illuminatus]

Thank you for the corrections Cataphract887. I assume we will document the process since it would be difficult to mod the game if we do not log our changes and discoveries.

[Kataphraktoi]

yes but making it understandable for people not immersed in the project will take more effort

[Illuminatus]

True, but someone interested in retracing our steps in order to make a conversion of his own will be ready to take effort.

[Blake]

We should be wary of forking the project (which would reduce multiplayer base for one) when it's quite possible that we can reach many acceptable comprimises between "clonage" and "enhancement". No-one truly wants to just play SMAC in Civ4.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Blake
No-one truly wants to just play SMAC in Civ4.

I personally have no desire whatsoever to play a cloned SMAC in Civ4: I want to play my own SMAX mod of Beta Lyrae via Civ4. However I will subordinate my personal desires for the greater good of focusing on creating a doppleganger of SMAC(X). If everyone else does the same, then with all of our expertise focused on this one goal we will then be able to create a damm good mod in a relatively short period of time. From there, with our accumulated (and documented) knowledge, everyone who wants to go their own ways and create their own mods will be lightyears ahead of where each of us would be if we each individually pursued our own versions of what we thought the next generation of SMAC(X) should be.

So, to summarize: in the short term lets pool our capabilities and work together to get the base game together. From there, let the diaspora of ideas begin!

D

[Illuminatus]

No further comments? I'll put the Catacorrected one in the threadm and if there are no further comments for couple of days, we've got our first newsitem.