In-House Preview Online: Part 2

[Jack Frost]

the problem i think is that he considers(ed) spending a paragraph for each menu option required. In which case a paragraph is required for every menu option in the game, in which case assuming there are 50 menus/pop up windows/ tables there need to be a minimum of 200 paragraphs of text just to cover the bases, then maybe a couple paragraphs describing trying to wrap up the description of all the menus into a summary of what the game is about.

The line in his last reply: "If you find that even this approach is not helpful, you can always skip directly to the screenshots. " bothers me. If this continues to be useless screenshot walkthroughs I will be very dissapointed. If that is your plan, I would suggest handing the preview version to another member of the Apolyton staff who _can_ write a review.

(sorry theres a thin line between emphasize my point and kicking a guy when he is down)

[Ekanata]

I don't see anything about race's prevered environment and terraforming circles. Aren't those infos should've been available when selecting race ?

[Writing Wraith]

Terraforming circles and the like are chosen on a basis of which species you choose.

[niteshade6]

I just thought I'd add my 2 cents and see if I can explain a little more about what other people are criticizing about the writing on this review.

Nobody is complaining about the amount of detail you give, in fact that is the one thing I think most people like about this review, even on other forums where people are generaly being far more harsh then anyone on this forum. Detail is good, especialy when it comes to new information.

What people are crticizing is just using unnecesary words in a way that does not convey any extra information. For example take two statements.....
1) I opened the door
2) The door was closed, so I decided to transform it into a new state so that it was now open, and was no longer closed.

The second statement is obviously much more wordy, without actualy giving any more information. It's also much less clear. This is more the type of thing people are criticizing you on in your writing.

If your really feeling brave you may want to check to see what people on other forums are saying about your writing, although it would probably be easier to just take the constructed criticism on this forum. The people on other forums are generaly far less polite and not quite so construtructive in their criticism.

[Jack Frost]

god i have nothing to do tonight

Style is forgivable if you are conveying meaningful information. Since this is poor in both, the style shines.

[Hrett]

Originally posted by Jack Frost

Style is forgivable if you are conveying meaningful information. Since this is poor in both, the style shines.

I thought this was supposed to be constructive criticism?

Frankly, if I were Dan, I would have told yall to take a flying leap about 2 pages back.

Dont forget that he is only 1/3 the way through his preview. There has been more hard information in the first 2 parts of his preview than all the others I have seen put together.

Keep asking for him to tone down the wordiness and you just might get less information. Be careful what you wish for... you would rather have another Gamespy preview?

How about cut the guy a break and say thanks for the free insight you are getting into the details of the game. Sheesh.

[Jack Frost]

Style is forgivable if you are conveying meaningful information. Since this is poor in both, the style shines.

I thought this was supposed to be constructive criticism?
...
Keep asking for him to tone down the wordiness and you just might get less information. Be careful what you wish for... you would rather have another Gamespy preview?

I want a really good prereview that tells me about the game. Comments made in this forum will hopefully influence the writer. Unfortionatly most of the complaints are about the style, saying that its too wordy. My point is that if it focused on more important and useful information that it being 'wordy' is completely forgivable. In other words - style is less important then substance. If there was more substance, nobody would care about the lacking of style. So to repair the situation for the next 4 previews please focus on covering more interesting material instead of worrying about wording.

Although my criticism is harsh, I believe it is completely constructive.

[niteshade6]

Well in all fairness, I think there was some substance to the review. There was definetely some new information given, and I think many people appreciate that. This kind of saves the article in a way, because many people will read it and still enjoy it because of this. Despite the writing quality, I was certainly still happy I read it. I'd rather read a poorly written article with new information then a well written article without new information.

Unfortunately the new information also draws alot of attention to the article. This causes many people to read it and comment on it. In fact the writing style is being discussed in pretty much every MoO forum on the internet. Not surprisingly, people are far less nice about it in other forums. So in many ways the new information is a double edged sword. It adds quality, but also calls a great deal of attention to the flaws.

[campfreddie]

I'd like to see a bit more opinion in the next preview.

It's fine being told that loyalty deducts 12 from unrest, but these are meaningless numbers since we have no idea how significant that is. Besides, we can always pick the figures out of the screenshots, if we're really interested. I'd like to have seen something more like:

You can set the citizenship of your race, from being your loyal and obedient servants to libertarian individualists. This has a significant effect on gameplay. Loyal servants will happily work on polluted factory worlds without complaining. If you make them liberals, then you can spend the pick points on superior manufacturing abilities instead, but you'll have to sacrifice some of those factories to make room for recreational facilities. I found that setting a high loyalty value was a good way to offset the unrest problems caused by representative (democratic) governments.

Or:

You can set the citizenship of your race, from being your loyal and obedient servants to libertarian individualists. I found this to be one of the less important attributes. Unrest and rebellions are rarely a problem in the games I've played, and you can always lower the tax rate a couple of percent should you have any problems. Unless you have a particularly unrest-prone race (such as those with democratic governments), it seems much better to spend these pick points on a production or economy bonus.

[Alexfrog]

well, I dont personally care about writing style when reading a game preveiw, I am interested in content.

While there are places where writing very concisely is good, I dont think it is necessary to be super-concise in writing a game preveiw. So I dont really have a complaint there.

A number of people complained about the style of this article on the infogrames MOO3 forums, but only a few complained about content. And that is whats important to me...

This preveiw game a lot of detailed info on race creation that I was interested in (though it wouldve been even better to have a full list of all the race pick costs for humans, and maybe one other, quite different race, for comparison purposes). So I liked it.

The only problems were a couple of content errors which have been pointed out and fixed.

Now if only we could manage to get the preveiws faster

[Alexfrog]

Originally posted by Jack Frost

I really don't know how much the racial choices you make influence the game, I don't know how much of a different game you will be playing if you choose to play a trader/peace race against a technology hogging industrial based race. Or does trading and technology basicly equal the same thing ala civ3 where trade points go into technology?

In previous MOO games, race choice, and in MOO2 race customization was an ENORMOUS aspect of the game. In MOO2, you have full leeway in customization, basically just picking abilities and disadvantages in a table, such that you added up to a certain number of points. The disadvantages gave more points to play with. This allowed you to create certain combinations of abilities which were extremely broken and would crush any other races which were not super-powered.

i.e. a Super-race with decent play would crush a merely 'good' race with expert play.... a good race with ok play would crush an average race with expert play, and so on.

Thus, like two thirds of the game was discovering exactly which abiities and combinations of abilities were broken, and were the best. So about two thirds of the game was determined already once the players had merely customized their races. Most of the rest of the game was in knowing how to play the early game (i.e. knowing WHY those superraces were broken, by knowing the key to breaking them). So knowing the correct order to research tech, the best build orders for your colonies, what was the best way to defend yourself/attack in the early game (which was to get two techs in Chemistry and build mirved nuclear missles), and so on, determined most of the game in MOO2. If both players were equally matched in both these areas (i.e. both had mastered them), then finally the game would continue to be a challenge, and fairly even, into the lategame, and tactics would come into play.


MOO3 probably wont depend as much on race customization, as you are more limited on how much you can customize things. And many abilities belong only to certain races, so there will be less broken combinations of abilities.

Still, it will play a role, and a great custom race will most likely crush a weaker race....so this is a very important aspect of the game.


MOO3 should be very different from Civ games, especially Civ3 (I hope). Generally, a signifcant technology lead in MOO games (based on MOO1&2) will provide an overwhelming advantage in both economy and combat. And this tech lead is attainable, because tech costs are not discounted for others once some players have researched them, and the AI players do not instantly trade all acquired techs to each other in one turn, like they usually do in civ3. (At least, I HOPE this will be the way it goes in MOO3, otherwise it will probably wont be that great)

[playshogi]

One of the differences from the user guide and DanQ's review is that in the user guide it says that your race modifications have to add up to zero. In DanQ's review it seems like that is not true. Of course, nothing in the user guide is fixed in stone, but it seems that it would be a good idea that for every advantageous change you make you ought to take on a disadvantage. I think these race picks will make the game unbalanced for multiplayer.

[Ekanata]

Originally posted by Writing Wraith
Terraforming circles and the like are chosen on a basis of which species you choose.

I can't find screenshot indicating for example, tachidi's sweet spot environment. Shouldn't those info availabe when choosing race before playing. Are those among the information ?

[billybaruch1]

I mean... I want to eat dead, burnt babies. I mean... I want to kill. Kill! Kill!

(My mangled quote from Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant.")

I'm sorry I forgot DanQ had written regarding the frequency of random events: "In the eighty-four turns that I saw come and go, just three came to pass."

I've read some of the beta testers' postings on the official forums and I can't wait to play the game. It seems like fun. I'm not so concerned about the hype and the repetition of the screenshots' information. I mean... we can all tell when someone has played the game to the end and learned something, can't we?

But it doesn't really matter to me what the rest of the preview says. What intrigues me is all the mental energy going into this thing. I cannot believe Quicksilver and InfoGrames can spend, what? 2-3 years and then charge only $40 a copy. How many will they sell? What were their costs? Maybe there could be, instead of a game where the player accumulates money to produce spaceships and colonizes an empire, a game where the player produces computer games and has to pay the developers and programmers and artists, etc. Whaddya think? Anyone want to go partners? It could be like MOO Tycoon.

While I'm at it, I'd like to mention there should/could be a truly peaceful way to win. I don't mean trickery or brute force disguised as polite diplomacy. I'd like to see a game (even if it doesn't reflect real life) where the player could agree to treaties and keep them. Perhaps even fall in love with their partners.

(Okay, now I've gone over the edge. Time to say good night!)

[niteshade6]

"One of the differences from the user guide and DanQ's review is that in the user guide it says that your race modifications have to add up to zero. In DanQ's review it seems like that is not true. Of course, nothing in the user guide is fixed in stone, but it seems that it would be a good idea that for every advantageous change you make you ought to take on a disadvantage. I think these race picks will make the game unbalanced for multiplayer."

Dan's words were a little confusing, but based on what he said, and what other people have written about this, I think he meant that you could disadvantage your race by choosing more disadvantages then advantages (not taking all the picks that you were allowed to), but you could not give yourself an extra advantage by giving yourself more advantages then your points allow.