RANTZ HOSELEY interview!

[TCO]

Originally posted by Pythagoras


Who cares, questions were asked, thats what he answered.

The interview is more than just answers to random questions. The identity of the interviewer determines what questions are asked, what followup is etc. Especially in this case, where we had a live interactive (i.e. real) interview, not just an e-mailed script of questions. The interviewer also deserves credit (good or bad) for the quality of the interview.

I don't mind using the "Apolyton" moniker in fron tof the interviewer questions. (I assume this is aping the Playboy interviews.) I just want the interviewer identified at the beginning of the interrview text. Let's say this wasn't MarkG. The identity of the interviewer gives me some basis to judge the interview and put it in context. When Larry King interviews someone I know it will be a "light" interview. If it is Sam Donaldson, I expect some tougher questions.

[MarkG]

i guess you didnt read the whole thing GP

[Solver]

Exactly why Moo3 doesn't excite me... space civ... blah. Civ is meant to be on earth and historical. Though, OTOH, I'm not a hardcore gamer, that is, don't play many games.

At least I can say I wasn't the one to make this interview, so don't blame me .

[LDiCesare]

The interview shows IMO that you can turn MOO3 into micromanagement hell. Sure you can group planets together, and even get 2 sets of orders for a given planet. That is cool. But will you get better results out of your empire if you do that than if you micromanage? I doubt tools to help macromanagement are the way to solve micromanagement problems. Maybe IFPs were bad for gameplay, still, I'd have liked to see what they played like. So bad there isn't even a way to impose them on the AI (I can limit myself, but the AI?).
I am glad they say the game is still on track for running on low-end (old) machines.
Still, I think Rantz' comments on the AI for fights is a bit off. Basically he says "your AI will lose if you gave it silly orders". This means the AI will lose against me if they have been given silly orders. I always played manually in MOO because the AI was so good at destroying your own ships and couldn't use them effectively, I am not going to trust the AI to do better here, however much I'd like to.

[MarkG]

it's been several years since moo LDiCesare, lets have some faith in the progress of AI programmers

[LDiCesare]

Hell yes, but I still play the game... Now maybe they get better. Still, since the fights will be real-time, there is a remote possibility that having better reflexes than what the game expects will give you an edge... I am a bit pessimistic about clever tactical combat because I don't hear about it much. And asking a programmer to have faith in other programmers is hard. I know too well what some programmers call code.
I'd just like to hear from QS something like "We are testing and tweaking the combat AI" specifically, and even more the tactical AI to be more confident about the game. Without proper testing, the AI will miss points that will become obvious to human players pretty fast. Giving stance for your civ looks good for instance, but I'd be much more confident if I could write the scripts saying how to use my weapons myself for instance. I have no idea whether the engine allows such details. Like saying "use the XXX ship to teleport near the most numerous opponent ships which can cause damage to XXX, black-hole them and NEVER send more than one XXX ship at a time, rinse and repeat until opponent is less than ZZ estimated offensive power". I never saw any information leading me to think that I could not only design the ships but also the AI that should go with it. As long as there were IFPs, that was OK because I would be spending my attention elsewhere. But now if I find out one my fleets is destroyed by lack of tactics, I will mm all the fights.

[TCO]

Mark, is there something hidden in there, with a personal reference? I skimmed parts of the interview, yes.

Try to be a bit more of a journalist. Put the interviewer's name in the first paragraph before the interview starts. It shouldn't be a hide and seek game. Just like having a headline and a byline at the front of a story.

[MarkG]

we usually have done that at the end of the interview GP, just like in this case

[TCO]

Markos, I just saw this: "Interview conducted by Markos Giannopoulos".

Was this on there when you posted it orginally? If so, it certainly hid well. Would still reccomend moving to the front. If not, maybe make it a little more prominent.

[Pythagoras]

Originally posted by GP


The interview is more than just answers to random questions. The identity of the interviewer determines what questions are asked, what followup is etc. Especially in this case, where we had a live interactive (i.e. real) interview, not just an e-mailed script of questions. The interviewer also deserves credit (good or bad) for the quality of the interview.

I don't mind using the "Apolyton" moniker in fron tof the interviewer questions. (I assume this is aping the Playboy interviews.) I just want the interviewer identified at the beginning of the interrview text. Let's say this wasn't MarkG. The identity of the interviewer gives me some basis to judge the interview and put it in context. When Larry King interviews someone I know it will be a "light" interview. If it is Sam Donaldson, I expect some tougher questions.

I dont think it matters, these questions were fairly standard and I think we know generally who did it, Mark or Dan. I dont think his answers would vary appreciably with that distinction.

[MarkG]

Was this on there when you posted it orginally?

yeap

our "tradition" of posting the name(s) at the end of the interview came from the fact that initially it was a common work of me and dan. saying that one of the pages of your site was done by you is a little too much for us so we actually didnt "sign" them. later when we had help in the questions from team members we mentiond them at the end. foa interviews which are 100% done by someone else from me and dan mention the name of interviewer at the begining. this is actually the first interview completely by dan or me that is "signed" and i'm deeply ashamed for that

[TCO]

Originally posted by Pythagoras


I dont think it matters, these questions were fairly standard and I think we know generally who did it, Mark or Dan. I dont think his answers would vary appreciably with that distinction.

If it had been done by Chris, I would have been more likley to read it all the way through. (So it matters...to me...and others I bet.) If it doesn't matter to you, fine.

[Hagbart]

Nice that the turns don't last too long.