Ideas for MOO IV

[Brutalisk]

Fusion Rifle : at first when I saw some of your first posts, I thought you knew something. As I kept reading your posts in this forum I realised that you know nothing really... Both on how to play the game as well as the so called "realism" you are advocating. I couldn't stop laughing for na hour when I saw your "expert" race in MOO II race picks. You didn't even use the negative picks to get 10 more picks to boost your race up.

As for MOO III, I believe that game did get a lot of things right. It is ofcourse different from MOO II, but "different" and "crap" don't mean the same thing.

There are a lot of players out there , in which the game appeals to them . The problem is, the game had flaws and the "official" development was cut short. There is still some unofficial development going on including help from some of the people who were in the team that created it.

As for some of its features, don't condemn them as if them "being condemnable" is an axiom. If you can't catch my drift, let's take starlanes for example, a lot of players would disagree with you, just because you don't like them doesn't mean they are not good.

[Zoetrope]

MOO2 editors are available (eg, at my moo2 website) for many customizations: custom maps, different default races, distinct techs for each race, editing some techs (including weapon systems), and much more.

The most useful editors in my experience are: COrion2, MeltPot, OCL and PickHack.

Incidentally, if you wish to play some moderate difficulty challenge games, there are some at the zoetrope site. For example, there's a Babylon 5 map and a Wing Commander map.

There are also records from the old Antares site (when MOO2 still basked in the warm afterglow of its heyday) where many expert players exchanged views, competed intensely, and gave many helpful tips to newcomers.

[Zoetrope]

My signature has vanished as thoroughly as if it had been stellar converted. So here instead is the information it contained:

Zoetrope MOO2 site:

ftp.sff.net:/pub/people/zoetrope/MOO2/

[Fusion Rifle]

I'm sorry I haven't responded to this thread, haven't got the time, but Brutalisk's rant made it necessary.

Knowing nothing of about what?

No, I've never played over the net, but I've played Master of Orion since 1996. In those days you still played hotseat games and yes, negative picks were used in customizing and yes, I'm aware of the benefits of Unification. Only because I've been mostly hindered to play MoO2 in later years (had XP for a while, for instance, soon after I got to the game, I had to switch to Win2000) it doesn't mean I know nothing about it. Actually, negative picks just slipped my mind, but on the other hand, I wasn't trying to create the race to beat all races; it was no "expert" opinion either and my post clearly says so.

Go ahead, please tell me where I know nothing about realism! Trouble is, everything I write here in that area I can back up (for what it's worth). Given the tools, I could make the most realistic 4X game ever to see the light of day, but that's not what MoO is about so it's not even the issue.
MoO on the other hand needs some basis in realism to give the player a "feel" of a real world. It's about achieving immersion. If you look on almost any successful strategy game, from Transport Tycoon to Civilization to Europa Universalis you'll see that some basic attempt to adhere to reality and natural laws go into all of them. A player must be able to 'believe' in a game, this is something that the creators of Free Orion regrettably refuse to realise.

To exemplify: Space Crystals stretches the imagination, but doesn't break it, since you could never say with absolute certainty that similar things might not exist in some form somewhere. It's an isolated case and doesn't challenge the other parts of the game. Starlanes, smiley faced galaxies (even though it's a joke) or the 'Civilization' way in which movement is performed in Galactic Civilizations on the other hand do, because they set the entire environment and are basic statements about the game world. Starlanes are highly immersion breaking because if there was anything like it we would have observed it. They don't lead you to think about space, rather they are reminiscent of super motor highways.
In other words, space crystals - good, starlanes - bad.

Finally, I don't think I have to go into everything that is at fault with MoO3, do I? MoO4 clearly must build directly on MoO2 and between you and me, I'd be very fond of hearing your own thoughts and ideas on the subject.

[Brutalisk]

Don't get me wrong, i applaud your enthusiasm for a Master Of Orion IV. I'm simply stating that MOO III got quite afew things right. And you cannot expect to stay at MOO II forever. As for making a game from scratch. I've seen atleast THREE serious attempts at making a "master of orion 2.5" and a few at making "master of orion 1.5". None of them is finished or remotely nearly finished or remotely getting anywhere. And some of them included a team of several programmers, artists etc

Making a game is one of the hardest and most time consuming things to do.

As for me, I'd love to make or be part of MOO IV (yes, I am a programmer ) , and yeah i have several ideas... out of the three, Moo II is still my favourite..

Zoetrope: lol. BTW, your url doesn't work bud. Would be nice to try again.

[Tiemler]

And you cannot expect to stay at MOO II forever.

Eight years ago, I was a student, with just enough spare time to get used to the level of micromanagement in MOOII and learn to play the game in a reasonable time frame. MOOIII is impractical for me.

When I grow tired of MOOII from time to time, it just collects a layer of dust that I brush off six months or a year later for a few more games. In the meanwhile, there's plenty else to occupy me. Europa Universalis II is a favorite strategy game, and perhaps the best example of an immensely detailed game that requires little or no micromanagement.

[Whoha]

above all else, the game should be fun, and it shouldn't get tied down with anything. I didn't have any problem with people in bear/bird/cat suits being races in Moo 2, or absence of realism.

I like the starlane/offroad model of travel, but offroad travel should be faster then it is in moo3.

as for the intelligent life, if there were a million civilizations or more, why haven't they been spamming radio waves around? surely 1 civilization would have been using them way back when so that today we'd hear from them. This points to the conclusion that there may only be a couple of intelligent civilizations, that are very far apart time/distance wise. and that isn't pessimism, its hope, considering everything we know about how different species interact with each other, and how we interact with different groups among ourselves, we shouldn't expect anyone that made it to the point of having an interstellar empire to be a pantywaist nancyboy. There is no reason to assume that we aren't typical, anyone that made it that far will have wiped out every other culture that used to exist on their planet, in one way or another.

[Garth Vader]

I just have time for a few quick points.

First no Starlanes. Hell, I don't even like Moo1/2's you can only travel between 2 stars. I'd like to be able to move a bunch of ships to a point in space and leave them there. In every game I have played with starlanes all they do is eliminate strategic flexibility and add tedium.

Combat: I'd like to see a merging of real time and turn based. Where you give each ship orders like normal real time, but the actual resolution is simultaneous. You'd still have good feedback on which ships and weapons are good, but you'd get away from the "one ship destroys whole fleets" problem.

[Straybow]

1. Invent time machine.
2. Go back to 2001.
3. Beat Alan Emrich about the head and shoulders with a zuchini until he dumps the silly ideas that sucked all the development time from the team.

[Brutalisk]

I agree with you on combat garth..

The first suggestion requires more "depth"

[Zoetrope]

OK, trying again (copied from the actual page this time).

ftp://ftp.sff.net/pub/people/zoetrope/MOO2/

[Brutalisk]

Oh, I've been there a long time in the past - i noticed from th fact I still have you bookmarked

[johnsje]

I know what I would want would be a long shot but why not try. My Idea is more of an end game/new start type idea.

Basically when you win the game and control that part of the galaxy, you are then able to move into the next part of the galaxy. Basically you would start new, but you would have the old technology and income that you had in the last Galaxy. All of that would be represented in your home planet. In the new Galaxy you would encounter all new races and continue to explorer new technology. The new races that you find would be more advanced than you and it would be hard to deal with them. This would make game play more difficult as well as more exciting.

I do realize that this would make the game quite large, but if it was setup so that it could be modded in that would be great. I just think that it would make the game play more fun as there is always going to be something new to explorer. Not just the same 100 or so techs to explorer.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
I just have time for a few quick points.

First no Starlanes. Hell, I don't even like Moo1/2's you can only travel between 2 stars. I'd like to be able to move a bunch of ships to a point in space and leave them there. In every game I have played with starlanes all they do is eliminate strategic flexibility and add tedium.

Combat: I'd like to see a merging of real time and turn based. Where you give each ship orders like normal real time, but the actual resolution is simultaneous. You'd still have good feedback on which ships and weapons are good, but you'd get away from the "one ship destroys whole fleets" problem.

the way laser squad nemesis resolves combat? that would be neat.

[Garth Vader]

I've actually never heard of laser squad nemesis.