Alan's case

[Ethelred]

He started as a writer for Computer Gameing World. He was a game designer and producer at Interplay. I don't think he was a programmer.

[TCO]

Maybe Alan's lack of coding knowledge led to problems...

[Capt Dizle]

Coorporate politics are brutal. Hello, best man, how are you, oops, sorry about that knife in your back, its only business.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GP
I would like to know if you think the original approach was overambitious (in that scope was left too broad too long.)

That was my feeling after I looked at their initial scheme.

It seemed that my lonely voice of cynicism was drowned out by the horde of enthusiasts at the time.

Cie la vie (or however it is spelled)

[TCO]

C'est la vie.

(That's life)

You and I are in agreement. I also posted about this earlier. I didn't realize anybody agreed with me. Well, you are a veteran coder...

WRT Civ3, I really just wanted an improved version of Civ2. Love the basic civ2 concept. Just want the cheats fixed, AI improved, and graphics, multimedia improved. Seems like we got some of that, but also some new concepts. The new concepts, (trade, culture) worked ok. But I'd have been just as happy having attention put into even better AI, etc. Also, in some cases they slipped back. No wonder movies for instance...

[SnowFire]

UR: They were pretty up-front that not all of it might get put in. And besides, I figured they wouldn't design something that they knew would be totally beyond their grasp (and I still don't know if the decision to scale back was "legitimate" or not in terms of what they could do). We'll find out when we see the finished version what really happened, most likely.

[Urban Ranger]

GP,

I made my mutterings some time last year, just right after they created the forum. I am not surprised you didn't see them.


Snowy,

That's the thing. Unless you got a couple of experienced game programmers in the original team to access the feasibility of what the designers were shooting for, it's very easy to get carried away.

In a pinch, a project manager or designer who had experience in this area could work, but you can't beat having people in the trenches on the design team.

[TCO]

My veteran game coder friend says that it can be a problem to have designers who don't have coding experience...or won't learn basics. They tend to design something and then toss it over the wall to have it coded. many times they don't realize how feasible it is. The best designers have coding experience and can give detailed instructions. in some cases including flow charts or truth tables...

[Ozymandous]

Well... If you're a smallish company having to pay everyone from YOUR pockets now that your producer isn't paying, you sometimes have to let people go you'd otherwise like to keep.

It's like getting "free" cable. When it's "free" we want everything but when we have to start paying the bills it's time to get rid of those extra channels you don't need as much..

[Urban Ranger]

While it's true, it does say something bad about the project management at QS. The project manager should have at least ran the design through the programmers to see what they think about the feasibility, with all the known constraints.

[Strollen]

I have been lurking on MOO3 Delphi forums and here for a while and I have to say I was orginally both excited and overwelhmed by the prospects of MOO3. However, my nagging feeling was the design was way way to ambitious, to be finished in any reasonable time. I'm not even sure that final result would be fun (deep yes, playable not sure).

I think many MOO3 fans have been caught in the Alan Ermich "reality distortation" and are taking there frustrations out on Infogrames who may not deserve to be the bad guy here.

I meet Alan (and the original staff of CGW Johnny Wilson, Russell Sipe) many years at game Con. He made an impression on me as beeing very bright, high energy guy, with a lot of charisma at least for us nerdy game guys :-). One thing is certain Alan is/was the best WRITER about computer games. Not only were his game guides the best every but his articlse in CGW were excellent. His writing skills were evident on the MOO3 website. The MOO3 website has tons more details about the game than almost any other game, which is remarkable cause the game isn't even in Beta yet!

However good writers don't necessarily make good game designers. My bet is Alan laid out this vision of a really hot incrediable sophisticated game and got everybody really excited about the game. Unfortunately, not enough people played devils advocate and said sounds great but can we build it? Of course the fans on the website were even worse constantly asking for even more features....

So rather than launch another BattleCruiser 3000 Infogrames decide to cut their losses. I don't think Alan would be the right guy to figure out which pieces of his baby should be chopped out.
There hasn't been a good 4x space game since MOO2, and Space Empire IV, and Reach for the Stars were so disappointing that I'm still rooting for MOO3 to be good.

[TCO]

Anybody want to offer a fact-based defense of the Alna desing? Storu mpuppie?

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by GP
Anybody want to offer a fact-based defense of the Alna desing? Storu mpuppie?

What do you mean by 'fact-based'? I was absolutely having no problem with the Alan Design. I believe the game would have been GREAT. The Sistine Chapel of Computer SciFi Strategy Gaming. They simply should have given it another year. If it takes one more year to build the Sistine Chapel, so what?

[moomin]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
If it takes one more year to build the Sistine Chapel, so what?

Speaking of which, CT, how's your own game effort coming along?

[TCO]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune


What do you mean by 'fact-based'? I was absolutely having no problem with the Alan Design. I believe the game would have been GREAT. The Sistine Chapel of Computer SciFi Strategy Gaming. They simply should have given it another year. If it takes one more year to build the Sistine Chapel, so what?

So they didn't have enough of an advance to build the sistine chapel. The project needs to be in budget. The reason its not is because the designers didn't consider codability in their design. The project manager screwed up. He needs to control effort so it gets done well and on budget. This is a very basic concept that any businessman must follow.