Was the original MOO3 concept better?

[Dreadnougat]

YES! IT WAS!

Even if the game didn't ship, it would've been better than this bland game we have now... because nobody would've been sucked into paying money for something this boring.

The interface stinks.

The combat sucks.

There is no sense of accomplishment for anything.

I feel like I'm playing a text adventure, but with no depth. Everything is abstracted into oblivion.

So yea... the original concept was better.

[Hydro]

I fail to understand how the 'original concept' was substantially different than the game as it stands. IFPs would have been an irritating distraction, especially when superimposed on the anal-retentive but unexplained detail pre-patch. Ethos would been interesting, but it would not have changed the flavor of the game. They were cut, but so what? I don't think their absence fundamentally impacted how the game plays.

Am I missing something? Was there some other major 'feature' that was cut that I am not aware of? If so, would these now missing features have changed the game’s feel, combat system, or feeling of accomplishment? Somehow I don't think so. And, if not, then they deserved to be cut.

If anything the game should have been pruned even more. But, then it would be Gal Civ...

[Dreadnougat]

edit: double post, won't let me delete

[Dreadnougat]

It's the abstraction.

"Oh yes, they have a different system of beliefs. You can clearly see that in the food bonus and manufacturing penalty."

What's the point in having anything more than text if all you want to do is abstract, abstract, abstract?

What this game lacks is flavour. Nothing you do, no technology you get, no attribute you choose, will make the game feel more interesting. Yes, you will change the gameplay a bit by taking x bonus and y penalty, but each game ends up feeling the same.

The game had potential to have some flavour, it doesn't now, ergo the original concept was better.

[AminMaalouf]

Hydro, it might be that now from a certain distance the changes do not look that far reaching at first hand but those had been so at that time.

The changes did not come over night and indeed they came step by step. The entire process took nearly a year of time and did only end shortly before the release of the game.

One of the first bigger features which were cut, had been Ethos as you correctely said, shortly after them came the IFP but there were others as the Factions, the Strategic Resources, the Research model and one thing you entirely forgot the role of the Senate which was thought as a tool for the player to impinge on the game on a high level.

Further features were to mention which had contributed additional aspects of a sim to the game (as another migration model). For me personally it's the sim like arrangement which belonged to the unrealized moo and which the given game had not been focused on.

Moo3 still fascinates me when I find time to sit down and play for a while (what has unfortunately become rare). The not yet realized game was what is really intriguing me.

[Writing Wraith]

Don't forget about the old leader system that would have allowed the player to promote, fire, and otherwise interfer with hundreds of distinct leaders including admirals, govenors, and sector seat govenors. Now that would have definitly added more interest to the game.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Hydro
Here is an amusing business aphorism: At some point you have to shoot the engineers.

The point? Engineers will happily tweak and change a product to make it perfect, and in doing so neglect to realize that at some point a project has to get done. By comparison, MBAs understand schedules and budgets but have a disconnect where it relates to understanding the details and what is ‘right’, resulting in some spectacular flame outs. If one side gets out of control the result is a train wreck. Moo3 has some evidence of such a train wreck (over budget, behind schedule, scope creep). In my (limited) experience the best projects are those where the engineers (or scientists, in my case) and the project managers/MBAs come to and understanding of terms before the project starts. This requires communication, which is always the hardest portion of any endeavor.

Hydro

I agree and think that in the best projects the managers will have the brains/background to learn about technical detail, particularly where it has large impact on project success.

[TCO]

Originally posted by DIH49


and here we have a PERFECT example of an either/or fallacy, also known as the False Dilemma. In this fallacy one suggests two (or more) possibilities as if they were the only ones. It is very easy to prove this sort of fallacy untrue. i can do it in three steps:

1. Either 1+1=4 or 1+1=12.
2. It is not the case that 1+1=4.
3. Therefore 1+1=12.

now the correct answer would be that neither are true, and that in fact there is a third possibility. for example, a game developer could get out the door a really cool design, or they could never get out the door a game "diehard fans ***** about". No doubt there are more than that as well.

oh, and please don't feel that i didn't notice your "(and no cutesie BS about making up a third option)". The fact that you told everybody not to point out your fallacy doesn't make it any less fallacious.

edit: and because i'm reasonably sure this will be nit-picked (not that it's likely i will come back and look, but for form's sake...) a False Dilemma fallacy only applies when not all options are represented. there are situations where there are in fact only two choices. for example:

1. Bill is alive or dead.
2. Bill is not alive.
3. Therefore Bill is dead.

and that is why i made sure to post up at least another option (in this case two).

Weasel.

[13Matt13]

I agree and think that in the best projects the managers will have the brains/background to learn about technical detail, particularly where it has large impact on project success.

Exactly. So how does canning your designer and having an ART DIRECTOR try to make a cohesive vision fall into this theory? Or could it be that youre wrong, and it wasnt Alan that "screwed" the project and the rest that "saved" it? By your own admission of a best-case scenario, MOO3 NEVER falls into place.

Weasel

Oh, name-calling. The best way to respond when youve been soundly defeated. Looks evrything just fell apart in the face of the well-reasoned response from a high school graduate. And who says the youth of today arent learning anyhthing?

[TCO]

1. Nothing fell apart. I'm just deciding how much time to spend on someone who can't think through implications.

2. Your point cuts both ways. The problem with Alan was that he didn't think enough about the integrated project. That he made a design that was too ambitious. The other guys managed to get the thing completed. That was an accomplishment. I assume that it was close to getting cancelled. Would you rather have half a loaf or none?

[13Matt13]

1. Nothing fell apart. I'm just deciding how much time to spend on someone who can't think through implications.

Is that manager-speak for "trying to figure out a comeback"?

2. Your point cuts both ways. The problem with Alan was that he didn't think enough about the integrated project. That he made a design that was too ambitious. The other guys managed to get the thing completed. That was an accomplishment. I assume that it was close to getting cancelled. Would you rather have half a loaf or none?

Once again, he was hired to do a design. When they tell him they can do something, God forbid he might actually EXPECT them to *do* it, not come back 6 months and $60,000 later and say "Whoops, we cant EXACTLY do that". If they told him to cut stuff, how do you know he wouldnt have?

And Alan's whole vision was the integrated project. It was when they started cutting things and made it a bastard child that it screwed up. If you want a game to be macromanagement, cut out the micro stuff and give the masses macro tools. Dont abstract some stuff all to Hell (IE research, governors), and make you focus on individuals in another area (IE epsionage).

And didnt your mother ever tell you what happens when you assume? Especially assume about a situation whose details you were NOT privy to?

[AminMaalouf]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

Game design is a business.

Is this really the case? To sell a game or to found the production of a game is without doubt a commerical activity, a business at the end, should all go round.
Sometimes not everything goes round and commercial decisions give an idea another shape than the intended one. However, I ask myself, wheather the design of a game might be something else (e.g. as well said by the poster before, an integrated project).

[Raion]

Actually, Microsoft is the one that screws up this game.
Perhaps, it would have been easier to write it in ms-dos with a very large dos extender, so it was actually using all of the hardware of the computer, and with a interface related to Direct X, but using a system that allows it to be built in the first place.

In other words, a designer can design a spaceship, and the design change over the time allowed, but if one can not build it ever, than it will never launch into space.

The spaceship can not be built, if it is not designed well enough, but also can not be built if it can not be built well. It takes both.

And no one has a government grant to build a computer game, or a spaceship, that I know of.

[Sarxis]

Woulda, shoulda, coulda...

Just a sad game.

[TCO]

Originally posted by 13Matt13


Is that manager-speak for "trying to figure out a comeback"?

Like I said, you can't figure implications.

Once again, he was hired to do a design. When they tell him they can do something, God forbid he might actually EXPECT them to *do* it, not come back 6 months and $60,000 later and say "Whoops, we cant EXACTLY do that". If they told him to cut stuff, how do you know he wouldnt have?

And Alan's whole vision was the integrated project. It was when they started cutting things and made it a bastard child that it screwed up. If you want a game to be macromanagement, cut out the micro stuff and give the masses macro tools. Dont abstract some stuff all to Hell (IE research, governors), and make you focus on individuals in another area (IE epsionage).

And didnt your mother ever tell you what happens when you assume? Especially assume about a situation whose details you were NOT privy to?

If the design is too ambitious, that is a fault of the design. If it can't be coded that is a fault. You can't just do the design for a year and than throw it over the fence and take a 50-50 shot that it will be feasible.