Moo3's Death by a Thousand Cuts

[kalbear]

Huh. I can see how it might be somewhat less cool, though I don't have access to the site directly right now (and what's up with that), but they sound much better than the almost pointless outpost ships in Moo2. The idea that you can capitalize on, say, higher pop growth of your race over someone else and go for cheap, quick expansion at the cost of early development is a nice alternate strategy idea, especially given the idea of the senate and starting out in a crowded section of the galaxy.

[TheMaestro]

My god they cut outposts?

It's confirmed, they officially don't care about what the actual consumer wants. Outposts were so helpful in MOOII, when you're surrounded by systems with nothing but Gas Giants and Asteroid belts...without them you'd be stuck for so damn long.

No outposts, artemis nets, can't even choose a color, rename a system...no refits? And didn't they get rid of most of the MOOII hold-overs in the company?

Remember, George Lucas had a whole bunch of new people for Episode I, and we all saw how "classic" that turned out to be...

[Craig P.]

Originally posted by TheMaestro
My god they cut outposts?

Did you actually read the linked thread?

"Gutted" != "Cut" in this case. In fact, I think "gutted" might be going overboard, though I wouldn't argue with "scaled back significantly."

[vishniac]

Originally posted by TheMaestro
My god they cut outposts?

Not totally!
But there is only one sort remaining,like a cheaper colony ship, and the data dump is no more relevant.

[SeanV]

Empire color
Renaming Star Systems
Refitting Ships

What is going on? These things should be easy to code. I mean, for heavens sake, how many times have things like that been coded into games? Since DOS was invented! (Well not the refitting ships one, but the other two...)

Outposts... well I read the thread and what it sounds like they did was go back to the original MOO2 outpost style.

Looks like they sliced, diced and strained MOO and MOO2 and tossed in a few fresh ideas (well cleaned) and put it all together and baked it for 45 minutes.


Oh yeah, about IFP's. Interesting concept but I don't think that it would have worked out to well. Imagine Ascendancy where you were forced to let the AI handle almost everything.... Scary, huh? The whole game would have to be designed around IFPs and that would mean bending the way the game plays (so you could have a good TBS space game that used IFPs it just wouldn't be a Master of Orion game.)
Shouldn't be all that much micro-management in MOO3. The planets are the biggest problem and since you can say that all core worlds will build this, and all new colonies will do that (and you can define which worlds are core and which worlds are new colonies etc.) the mm should be lowered considerably.

Just my two BCs... oops AUs.

[kalbear]

There are some things that are simply baffling to me, like lack of color/ship design choices and lack of renaming systems.

The rest makes pretty fair sense. Refitting doesn't fit in the model they have, and making it fit requires too much retooling for too little gain and very little fun.

Outposts are similar to MoM's style - they are limited colonies that stake a claim. Considering that you have unlimited range and speed/ability to protect chokepoints is the real key factor, I'm not surprised they were changed. They did get modified from the data dump, most notably because of game balance issues.

I'm not sure that most people realize exactly how much is different in MOO3, especially compared to the first two. The sheer scale, the task force system, ground combat, diplomacy and the Senate, space lanes (and that does change quite a bit), race mechanics, spying, government choices, queue choices, race balancing, population emigration and growth, research, economics, taxes...

They did indeed take a lot from other games. It sounds to me like they took some of the better elements from MOO (like no buildings and slider bars), MOO2 (leaders, interface, economics), SMAC( better diplomacy and council politics, better queues and templated queues) Ascendancy (notably spacelanes, notably absent AI), CIV series, and a few others. They introduced real-time combat to the set in a fleet-based system.

I do believe that the list of cuts is painful to some, but really, how bad is that going to make the game? Are any of the cut things going to be more than merely annoying to people?

[RolandtheMad]

Yeah so, like I`ve said a few times in not so many words, I think it will still be a good game. I`m just baffled like you that the little things were left out. In the end it isn`t that big a deal but it all seems so simple and basic that it really put a hair in my ass for awhile to learn that they were cut.

[Xentax]

Originally posted by TheMaestro
My god they cut outposts?

It's confirmed, they officially don't care about what the actual consumer wants. Outposts were so helpful in MOOII, when you're surrounded by systems with nothing but Gas Giants and Asteroid belts...without them you'd be stuck for so damn long.

No outposts, artemis nets, can't even choose a color, rename a system...no refits? And didn't they get rid of most of the MOOII hold-overs in the company?

Remember, George Lucas had a whole bunch of new people for Episode I, and we all saw how "classic" that turned out to be...

You're exaggerating, to put it mildly.

"What the consumer wants"? What the consumer wants is a fun game, last I checked, and that's what they're trying to deliver.

FYI, the MOO2 outpost is almost completely useless in the MOO3 context -- you're no longer have limited range (though ships far from home cost progressively more to maintain).

What WAS going to be new and different was different kinds of outposts with different bonuses when created. As it stands, they're basically a mini-colony -- they don't create fully-functional colonies as quickly, but they're cheaper, too.

It sounds like you want MOO 2.1, IMHO. No Artemis System nets, true. There were plans for non-trivial, non-abstract minefields in MOO3 at one point, but they didn't make it, either. Be upset about that, not the missing Artemis, if you want to be upset about something.

Refits will come, eventually. Everyone wishes they could get them in for the initial release, but you'd have to choose either a buggier release or another delay to get it. Sorry.

I'm not sure what you mean about holdovers in "the company" -- QSI is a completely different company from SimTex, which made MOO and MOO2.

[vmxa1]

I never saw any value in Artmeis Net any way.

[kalbear]

Not that doom stars were all that much better, but yeah - being able to do a negligible amount of damage to ships and then not being able to attack them first anyway was effectively stupid.

Now, if they did them right, well hey, cool beans and all that. But I won't be crying over that.

Now, not being able to change my empire color and continually having RED...that might get on my nerves after a while.

[moomin]

The Artemis net was useless alright. Maybe we need a poll over in Moo2 about the most useless technology - Artemis is right up there, next to scout lab.

[Harry Seldon]

It's been awhile since I last played MOO2, but I'm pretty sure I was able to lay a little smack down with Artemis System Net. Now I'd agree that it wouldn't stop a massive fleet but sometimes it made the difference when all I had was a Battlestation and a few missle batteries in-system.

[TheMaestro]

Obviously you never played MOO2, Artemis nets were useful.

But think about it, if QSI is a whole new company, then they can never live up to the ratings of MOO2, which was truly a great game. Check out any sequel made to any game, if it was made by someone secondary than the originals. Star Control III, different people than Star Control II. Had QSI kept all the MOO2 people, they would have had veterans of this kind of code-database, but since they've been working from scratch, they've had to cut all these little things that while not important individually, make the game more interesting and fun in the long run. Sometimes creating a massive expanding empire doesn't feel the same when you're empire color has to be purple.

But it's just a game, no need to get defensive and sensitive about it, and defend a company that has yet to give people anything.

[Xentax]

Originally posted by TheMaestro
Obviously you never played MOO2, Artemis nets were useful.

But think about it, if QSI is a whole new company, then they can never live up to the ratings of MOO2, which was truly a great game. Check out any sequel made to any game, if it was made by someone secondary than the originals. Star Control III, different people than Star Control II. Had QSI kept all the MOO2 people, they would have had veterans of this kind of code-database, but since they've been working from scratch, they've had to cut all these little things that while not important individually, make the game more interesting and fun in the long run. Sometimes creating a massive expanding empire doesn't feel the same when you're empire color has to be purple.

But it's just a game, no need to get defensive and sensitive about it, and defend a company that has yet to give people anything.

Um, "you don't know what you're talking about" would come across as offensive, so I won't say that. But I think you're making some bad assumptions, at least.

-- QSI never *had* any of the MOO2 people -- though Steve Barcia did talk to Alan about the project at least once.

-- There is NO code re-use from MOO2. That's not always a good thing or a bad thing; in this case, I'm pretty sure it's a good thing (I'm a software engineer by day, so I have some insight into this sort of issue).

-- I know there are a lot of examples out there of "don't let somebody else to the sequel!", but considering SimTex isn't around anymore to even potentially have done MOO3, that's really a non-issue here. It was somebody other than SimTex, or nobody at all.

[RolandtheMad]