Sorry, but I think MoO 2 is BETTER than MoO 3.

[Darth Balrog]

Hi,

I introduce myself shortly:

I Play: Civ, Civ 2, Civ 3, CTP 1, CTP 2, Master of Magic and Master of Orion 2...

I like all this games a lot! In particular Master of Magic and Master of Orion 2 !!
(Of course Civ 3 is very nice too).

Finnaly I see MoO 3.... ehm, SIGH.

Sorry, but I think MoO 2 is BETTER than MoO 3.

In particular for 3 reasons:

1. MoO 2 have a better grafic. (Incredible but true).
2. MoO 2 have better fights. (Incredible but true).
3. MoO 2 is a deep strategy game and is very intuitive at the same time. I can't say the same thing for MoO 3.

What I expected from MoO 3 were all this things and to feel myself in a more plausible universe.

But this didn't happen.

Agin, siiigh.

[Grumbold]

Anyone who wanted MoO 2.5 has been disappointed. The game owes more to MoO 1 but is truly its own entity.

[Q Classic]

1. moo3 has better graphics in some areas--just not in the interface, the strategic map, or the tactical map.
2. moo3's ground fights are slightly better.
3. moo3 is a deeper strategy game severly crippled by opaque cause-effect reactions, abysmal documentation, non-intuitive interface, piss-poor decisions on what was and wasn't abstracted.

i'm not playing moo3 because i flat out didn't enjoy it much, not because i thought it was strategically shallow; i just didn't enjoy having to fight the interface and not being able to clearly see what my decisions were doing.

[Ozymandous]

Darth Balrog: No need to be sorry you didn't like the game. As Grumbold said, most of the people who wanted MOO 2.5 were disappointed. I hope you bought MOO3 at a place that accepts returns, since it's not what you wanted.

Q Cubed: Have you tried the patch? If your main "micro-hell" part of the game was regulating the MBQ like mine was, the patch helps that immensely with the "queue lock" feature. I rountinely add the three defense bases for any new planet then lock the queue. Nothing is ever added to any planet unless I tell it to add there.

Just thought I'd ask. Oh, and I agree that MOO3 has much deeper choices strategically, but suffers from feedback as already mentioned.

[Q Classic]

ozy: i haven't. that's mainly because after finding i didn't enjoy it, i uninstalled it from my hd.

i don't have galciv, because my next purchase is/was rise of nations, and i'm enjoying that far more than i did moo3. maybe after i get bored with ron, i might be persuaded to give moo3 a shot again~ but i doubt it.

[Vince278]

Re: Sorry, but I think MoO 2 is BETTER than MoO 3.

Originally posted by Darth Balrog
1. MoO 2 have a better grafic. (Incredible but true).
2. MoO 2 have better fights. (Incredible but true).
3. MoO 2 is a deep strategy game and is very intuitive at the same time. I can't say the same thing for MoO 3.

I agree that MOO3 isn't very intuitive but I think it is much deeper than MOO2.

[Killazer]

Most people think moo3 sucks. Seriously, lol, at least most normal people.

[Grumbold]

Most normal people don't play PC TBS games so they wouldn't even have an opinion on it

QS were saying for months that MoO3 was not going to be MoO2 with bells on, but somehow thousands of MoO2 fans seemed to manage to buy the game expecting it to be just that. Unsurprisingly they think the game sucks. I think their ability to read and comprehend is lacking in something too

MoO3 is a long way from perfect but its the only game that makes me feel like a ruler. In all other TBS games I'm a set of clones who has to do everything from command the armies to clean the toilets because if I don't do it it doesn't get done. Ruler of the invincible Grumbold Empire, population 1.

[krait23]

I doubt that the usual MoO2 fan browses forums for games that are not yet released. They just assume (and imo that should be a sound assumption, regrettably it apparently isn't) that if its called MoO3 it should bear some resemblance to MoO2. They foolishly believed that noone would dare to go to such extremes to make a game that has absolutely nothing to do with its predecessor. And thus preordered the game when it was first made available for order...
That at least is the story of me and the fools among my friends who also preordered it...

And then there are tons of idiots who give an unreleased game rave reviews at many sites (amazon among them, I think it had an avg of 5 stars prior to release, now it has 2 stars, go figure...). Of course these reviews all just said that a successor to MoO2 HAS to be good, and it can't be bad after all this time of waiting. Had no input on the actual game whatsoever... That probably fooled many people too into buying it. (Not me though, I just didnt think anyone could screw up so badly after such an excellent predecessor. Shoulda known better after Star Control 3, but I guess I tended to be too optimistic... Never again.)

And when people finally got it they saw the truth, and of course were disappointed...

One thing MoO3 for certain did is discourage people from ever again buying games they haven't tested through other means first.

And is it really so wrong to expect MoO3 to be a successor to MoO2 rather than a suckessor to MoO1?

Games with titles like MoO2.5 are not made usually. And a game that so radically departs from the previous number in the series should get a new name. But of course all the now disappointed MoO2 fans wouldn't have wasted their money on a game with a different name...

I think the game wouldn't receive nearly the bashing it does if it had been released as something other than the heir to MoO2... I just wonder if sales figures would have been higher in that case, since MoO3 might be a good game for people not knowing (or not liking) MoO2 but the bad reviews probably discouraged a lot of those too... Guess that depends on how many of the people that preordered and were disappointed could return the game...

Lata
Krait

[Killazer]

Whatever you want to say to make moo3 seem like a good game, go ahead. The facts however speak for themselves with the numerous terrible reviews and now Amazon practically paying people to get the game.

Personally, I kindof like moo3 lol. I do however feel that it could have been made much more 'fun' and stimulating to play like its predecessors. It's too dry and cumbersome with horrible archaic graphics to be really a fun a game to play. Accountants probably love it tho....

[Craig P.]

Last I knew, "Amazon practically paying people to get the game" ended last weekend.

As for the point that MoO2 had better fights... YMWV, I definitely don't see it that way. A late-game fleet engagement in MoO2 was a 45-minute snoozefest, a late-game engagement in MoO3 can be awe-inspiring over its three-minute length.

[CharlesBHoff]

When I brough MOO3 I knew it wasnot going to be MOO2.5 at all. I like all the MOO's games.

[ACEofHeart]

And just why shouldn't we think it was going to be MOO2 with bells on ??

uh,,Isn't CIV3 all about that ??

If MOO3 was not going to be "MOO2 improved" then why bother calling it Master of Orion !!!!
They took advantage of the MOO series fans , hoping to get their monies and came up with a glorified mess.. it deserved every crushing review it got ,, and deserves to be in the bargain bin ,,,where its at right now !!!

If we don't let them know how angry we are,, lord knows what MOO4 might be.. (gulp)

[CharlesBHoff]

Originally posted by ACEofHeart
And just why shouldn't we think it was going to be MOO2 with bells on ??

uh,,Isn't CIV3 all about that ??

If MOO3 was not going to be "MOO2 improved" then why bother calling it Master of Orion !!!!
They took advantage of the MOO series fans , hoping to get their monies and came up with a glorified mess.. it deserved every crushing review it got ,, and deserves to be in the bargain bin ,,,where its at right now !!!

If we don't let them know how angry we are,, lord knows what MOO4 might be.. (gulp)

MOO3 deserves to be than MOO game in that outstanding series of games. Ten year from now it will be than classist game. MOO2 was not than MOO1.5 it was than total different game from MOO1. In MOO1 you where allow to do research in all six field at the same times, while in MOO2 you where allow to do research only in one field at a time. Many MOO1 player didnot like MOO2 when it first came out either. Because I didnot like MOO2 when I got it.

[krait23]

While MoO2 does indeed differ from MoO1 in many features (and granted, not all of them were improved), the core game remained very much the same (at least I felt that way, I pretty much immediately knew what I was doing in MoO2 from my experience with MoO1).
Maybe kinda like Civ2 to Civ3 (I keep on hearing people saying Civ3 is so far removed from Civ2, in my opinion it isnt far at all, still more or less the same game, just lots of features added/tweaked. I still play Civ3 very much the same way I played Civ2).

Now in MoO3, being a MoO2 guru didnt help me any... I am still looking for resamblances other than names and descriptive terms like "Ultra rich".... Its a completely different game. Which I still think would have done a lot better not being named after the MoO series (prolly not sales wise, but review and customer-satisfaction wise....)

MoO3 kinda feels like the next Might & Magic game being released as a Wizardry title... While I play both series and would like to see either game, I would be really pissed if Wizardry 9 (not like we will ever get that) played like a Might & Magic game...

Lata
Krait