How will GalCiv react to the Moo3 delays?

[MarkG]

i fell less tender now

[Asmodean]

I don't have the education to back this up with fancy words, but I should think it is pretty obvious that two games like these, releasing at roughly the same time, will generate some added interest for the genre. Especially if they're any good.

But!! I will also add, that the competition may very well hurt one or both of them, and my gut feeling tells me that Galciv will lose the most by releasing after MoO3.

Asmodean

[TCO]

It certainly WILL benefit the genre. But it boggles the mind to think that the genre will expand to the extent that growth in the genre is sufficient that the game's individual sales will increase. Instead they will "eat each other's lunch". Brad has already said that this is what he thinks will happen. And it is common sense.

[Ghostbear]

Trickle down

I remember that I never bought either of the Dark Reign games because direct competitors came out first.

I think it extremely unlikely that the market for 4X games will "widen" because you release 2 similar games at the same time.

Its pretty clear from the M00 3 "official" forums that almost everyone over there knows about GalCiv.

Given IGs record with the MOO 3 release date, if GalCiv were on the shelves I think alot of people would get it thinking that Moo 3 MIGHT NOT be out within the forseeable future.

If MOO 3 gets out first, GalCiv will have a terribly hard time catching up.

My Thoughts...

I'm 39, and I buy all the games I play...

GB

[Eric S]

I'll probably wind up getting both, mostly because I'm new to the genre, and hoping that one or the other will fill me with wonder

On the other hand, I feel sorry for which ever I like the most, because that will be the one that is too in-depth and complicated for the mass market, and hence the more likely of the two to fail.

[ravagon]

Re: Trickle down

Originally posted by Ghostbear
I think it extremely unlikely that the market for 4X games will "widen" because you release 2 similar games at the same time.

I don't know ...
Look at Civ3. I'm not sure exactly how many copies they've sold but its a fair few. At a guess there are quite a few who made it their first foray into the tbs market. I've also noticed a few posts on the Paradox board about people who got into the genre through Civ3 and then diversified.
Probably not quite a representative sample, but still ...

[Ghostbear]

Re: Re: Trickle down

Originally posted by ravagon


I don't know ...
Look at Civ3. I'm not sure exactly how many copies they've sold but its a fair few. At a guess there are quite a few who made it their first foray into the tbs market. I've also noticed a few posts on the Paradox board about people who got into the genre through Civ3 and then diversified.
Probably not quite a representative sample, but still ...

I think the things we (I) like best about a 4X game:

Complex gameplay
Deep strategy
LONG games
Satisfying single player

Are (unfortunately) exactly what limits their mass appeal.

Take multiplayer for instance, a good MP game takes at the most a few hours to play. In a good game of MOO2, you had just barely gotten started after 2 hours.

Given the Civ3 example, you could make the case that MOO3 (with name recognition) might not be impacted (much) by GalCiv releasing first, but the reverse isn't going to be true.

For my part, I would be happy to buy both, hopefully before I grow old and die.

GB

[Draginol]

Now that MOO3's official release date is February 25, the same day we had planned to release GalCiv (a date picked over a year ago) the decision is going to have to be made soon whether to push it back or not.

I don't really think moving it forward is a good idea. I think it increases the chance that some bug would get through or something that another week or two of testing would have found. And you'd really need to move it forward by 3 or 4 weeks to have any real difference.

[MarkG]

Now that MOO3's official release date is February 25

if you're refering to our news item about the infogrames.de notice, it's not the final one.

the official release (as displayed by quicksilver's site) is currently "very soon"

[Zoid]

Very soon meaning "some time this spring" probably...

I doubt that Quicksilver will make the deadline, so you and the rest of the crew don´t have to hurry, Draginol

[Asmodean]

And now that I have the Beta, Draginol: You guys take all the time you want.

Asmodean

[Ghostbear]

Very soon

I believe the "Very Soon" has been sitting there since well before Christmas.

Either:

They experience time in dog years or,

They are just too afraid of more flames on their website if they change it.

[Alexfrog]

Funny, in the MOO3 forum its all "go MOO3, MOO3 rocks and GalCiv sucks" and here its the opposite.

I guess I'm a MOO3 guy, primarily based on the following:

I have played games like Civ, MOO, SMAC, etc for many years of my life. (Started on Civ1 when I was 8) (No I dont mean I played them continuously for years....dont go there)

For many many years, I constantly wished I could play these games multiplayer, but alas, it was never to be. Civ 1, MOO, MOM, Civ2, all single player. Finally came MOO2, and it was multiplayer, and I played it with my brother, friends, college roommate, etc.....many many MP games of MOO2.

MOO3 is multiplayer....GalCiv is not. I will therefore buy MOO3, because if I played GalCiv a lot, I would eventually come to the point where: "I rule at this game, and kill the AI, but oh I wish I could play multiplayer".

I will get good at MOO3 with some SP to start, but after that I will mostly play MP.

I am not a fan of incredibly long games....I prefer my games to take an evening at most.
I used to like long games back when I was in school and had tons of time. (well, sometimes in school i had loads of time) If it was like that now, i would probably buy both games. As it is, I just dont have the time....i dont have the time to learn GalCiv and master it and then wish I could play it MP, when MOO3 exists.....I'll choose the one with MP and play it.


I hope GalCiv is successful and helps more of this type of game to be produced in the future. I hope MOO3 is a blockbuster and inspires more of these tyes of games to be produced in the future. (I dont really see GalCiv as doing that...but MOO3 may have the power to do so).

So thats my take, from a MOO3 guy.


Regarding the MOO3 releasedate....yeah its slipped a lot, but when the game coms out it will be quite solid. Such is the price to pay for a bugfree game. (by bugfree I mean free of large, crash-type bugs)...nothing will be entirely bug free of course

[Draginol]

Of course, MOO3 doesn't have an open beta program so I'm not sure how users of the forum there can compare the two.

But I agree with you on one thing, if multiplayer is the crucial feature, then obviously MOO3 may have an advantage depending on how well it's pulled off.

But as someone who has spent the last decade developing multiplayer games and having played many games multiplayer (if you were in PGL, you may have heard of me as "Frogboy" in there) I can say that what sounds good on paper may not turn out.

Freedom force has multiplayer too. So did HOMM3. Heck, Neverwinter Nights has multiplayer. Now some people swear by the multiplayer in these games. But for others it was a mixed bag.

It is my view that multiplayer games have gotten PLENTY of attention over the past decade. You say a successful MOO3 will bring more attention to its type of game. What type would that be? Multiplayer strategy games? There's been no shortage of those.

On the other hand, it seems to me that the number of strategy games where intelligent computer AI has been the goal has been very small.

Certainly MOO3 will sell more units. On the other hand, GalCiv won't be an obscure game by any stretch either. Hopefully both will help show that there is still a market for in depth strategy games.

[Alexfrog]

Hey frogboy, I'M the Frog! (see my nick lol

I played Homm 2 and 3 multiplayer a lot and loved it.

There have been incredibly few multiplayer 4x type games, and that the kind I am most interested in....


The big reason MOO3 is taking so long is they refuse to release a bad game....they had something near the beginning of 2002, and decided it sucked, so they totally redid everything....thus it is now "vaporware" lol. It'll be out in a month or two (Maybe even a couple weeks, if Gonegold.com is right!!!)

They had crash bugs and problems in multiplayer, so they have delayed the release for months until they get them right. I think the quality of MOO3 will be wonderful.

AI and less micromanagement were design features from the start...so we hope they will work. Basically all our opinions of the game are based on what the Betatesters tell us....so you can be sure, but I tend to believe them when they say stuff like "the builds we got at first a few months back really really sucked and I was scared and thought MOO3 would be horrible, but it has steadily improved and now its awesome"

But of course, I loved MOO1 and MOO2 and I WANT to belive MOO3 will rule...

we'll see