In-House Preview Online: Part 5

[Alexfrog]

DiCesare, you should check out the Beta Tester's game and battle descriptions on the infogrames moo site..

http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=239742

you have to register to read the forums, but its worth it. Some very well written, exciting, informative stuff there And from people who have actually played the game a lot and faught real battles! not accidentally ran their scout into an enemy colony and had it destroyed....


Also, your sig mentions you are in to low micromanagement and good AI....

in a question and answer session at orion sector, when asked "what are your 3 favorite things about the game", fully half the betatesters replying responded that they loved the AI control of their colonies (i.e. that you could let it do lots of the micromanagement work for you and it would DO A GOOD JOB!!!!)

[kalbear]

Though I would dearly love to hear Chaos Avatar do an AAR of that battle:

"Sir, we are approaching an unknown planet. What should we.."
"FULL SPEED AHEAD! Man the cannon!"

"But, sir, we are an unarmed ship. Our mission is to seek out new life, explore..."

"There'll be none of that naysaying around these parts! It's that kind of can't-do attitude that made us not be able to simulate the Zeemac and Hithoru races!"

"Err...sir - those aren't races. Those are emperor names. I think..."

"Hah! Next thing you'll tell me is that we're not Apolytonians, and we came from some mythical 'human' race! Never mind - ensign, you're now in charge. Charge cannon and prepare to blockade that planet!"

"Sir, the planet might not be inhabited - and if it is, blockading is considered to be an act of war by many races. Should we not consider, say, scouting the system first?"

"With our military might, I'd like to see them try and declare war on us! Nothing can defeat the Apolytonian Space Ship Invincible!"

"Sir, this is the ship Intangible. And we stopped using Apolytonian Space Ship as a designator after someone pointed out the acronym wasn't...well...flattering..."

"SILENCE! Am I surrounded by fools? Ensign, you're relieved. Get me your subordinate - he's in charge!"

"Sir, this is a three man scouting vessel..there are no other men."

"Fine, fine, drown me in legislative details. Have we blockaded the planet yet?"

"Yes sir. There are reports of a Meklar civilization down there. Emperor OE-18D9-24K21 is hailing us."

"You mean the OE race is hailing us? Excellent...another race we have no way of simulating. Tell them that all their base are belong to us!"

"Sir, there's an incoming message from the Emperor. "

Emperor: "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? DON'T ATTACK THEM!"

"The emperor is obviously under the influence of this evil race of OE...whatever the hell their race is. Kill them all!"

[Alexfrog]

Roland also put many of them up on apolyton...

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=76060

[Mr.Moustache]

Originally posted by Alexfrog
magnate*, not magnet, but yeah....I agree, its a big mistake.

Oops, thanks for pointing that out. I don't know what I was thinking lol. Oh well, go brain...

[Scybeam]

What I don't understand is the main screens. Why are there 2 main screens? Does one or the other randomly load when the game starts???

[Dinamarth]

"The above serves as the most devastating example of the less-than-positive consequences stemming from my decision to employ as a minimal number of minimally armed ships as possible."

Say what?

"As such, it is not long before you can quickly correlate the line colour to remind yourself what your race's position is as it pertains to another."

I'm pretty sure there is a better way to describe that...

"After being forced into a battle with opponents I didn't even know where there let alone prepared to engage. But I'm not bitter. At all. Honest. "

You are bitter because you lost a scout ship? Bitter? Get a grip. Scout ships are expendable.

If you've had the game (or a beta) for about two months, how come you've only played half a game? And what in the world drove you to write a whole series of previews based on this half game session?

I'm sorry (for QSI, IG and MoO3 mainly, but also for the people who have actually read all the drivel you've written), but this has got to be some of the worst waste of bandwidth I've ever seen...

[Darkrenown]

Despite the post above mine, I didn't think part 5 was too bad. If the other 4 had been written to that standard I would never have bothered complaing about the writing. Having said that:

DAN! Those are not non playable races! They are EMPIRE NAMES OF PLAYABLE RACES. EMPIRE NAMES! E-M-P-I-R-E N-A-M-E-S! Ok?

[Adacore]

Good stuff - i particularly like the concept art

I'd have preferred if you'd been a bit more militaristic - i doubt a single scout shows off the MoO3 combat engine and graphics very well.

I took the liberty of editing it a little, and posting it on the IG forum, hope you don't mind (if you object i can delete the thread). Here is the link:

http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=259491

[Dinamarth]

Originally posted by Darkrenown
Despite the post above mine, I didn't think part 5 was too bad. If the other 4 had been written to that standard I would never have bothered complaing about the writing.

How is it even possible to make something worse than this part, while still using English?

[Stuie]

Guess I was hoping for more about the nuts and bolts of combat, something that actually describes how combat works, what the player's choices are, more screens, etc. Too bad Dan didn't get into combat more; maybe we actually would have learned something.

And please don't point me to the BTs; I want facts, not some sci-fi author wannabe.

[Kapeman]

Originally posted by kalbear
Though I would dearly love to hear Chaos Avatar do an AAR of that battle:

OMFG! That is a scream! I love it!

[Alexfrog]

well, in various threads at IGMOO, the BTs have explained about ship sizes, task forces, battle commands, weapon types, ship design, mobilization, and loads of other stuff.....

The info is there (spread through a number of different threads....you'll find a lot in the Strategy/Gameplay and After action reports sections on IGMOO), but if you dont want the BT's....then there isnt anywhere else to get the info....because they are the only ones who have been giving us useful stuff.

Also a bunch of stuff in the "Prerelease Forums -> Space Combat" forum.

Sci-fi author wannabes, lol. They are an entertainging read and gave lots of good info...

[Adacore]

Kalbear: ROFL - excellent!!! funniest thing i've read in days.

[viciouscycle]

@kalbear: That was hysterical!

I didn't especially like this section of the preview for the same reason that I didn't like the first three: it is abstracted, detached from the game. I would like to see something more along the lines of section four where there were direct conections between the descriptions and explanations and what was actually going on in the game.

The combat information was laughable. How about getting into a skirmish with some ships that have shields and armor and weapons?

Just a suggestion.

[Alexfrog]

what!? a real combat? no...

far better to spend 4 weeks advertising that part 5 will cover combat, and then just have your scout get killed in one shot by a warship the first time you encounter a new race.

wow, now I know all about moo3 combat! what an in depth preveiw!