10 Hours to Break Even

[Ghostbear]

I bought MOO 3. Actually, the more I read the "bad" reviews the more I realized they were telling me to buy it.

I love complex, I love LONG, I like the experience of playing, winning is not that important. I've played SE IV for countless 100s of hours and have never actually finished a game.

Anyway, using movies as a "currency", at $5 per hour of fun per movie, you break even after only 10 hours.

So, even if you hate it, its not a bad value.

I figure my cost per hours will end up being .000000000000000000000000000000001.

GB

[Antonin]

Re: 10 Hours to Break Even

Originally posted by Ghostbear
I bought MOO 3. Actually, the more I read the "bad" reviews the more I realized they were telling me to buy it.

I love complex, I love LONG, I like the experience of playing, winning is not that important. I've played SE IV for countless 100s of hours and have never actually finished a game....

Your approach to strategy gaming is EXACTLY the same as mine...even as far as your comments on SEIV are concerned.

So.....I'm going to buy MOO3 tomorrow!

[vee4473]

if you are in sync with his gaming preferences, why not wait until he gives a thumbs up or down?

i don't think he did in the above post ...or am i missing something?

[TrainWreck20]

Indirectly, he did.....his $/hr estimate would indicate that, based on his experience so far, he plans on playing it many, many hours...which would probably mean he likes it

[ChaotikVisions]

Sounds like how I am with games, its more about playing it then finding the uber-l33t strategy to win. Its also figuring out how to play the game. Every time I come back to the game its like i'm learning more, i'm bettering setting up my DEAs now, finally understanding all of the funding, and trying to work some diplomacy and keep my research in shape. Micromanagement isn't bad/impossible/etc... you've just got to learn it if you want to do it, and despite what some reviews say, the AI won't change anything of yours when off except in starvation/blockades. Which I haven't noticed a DEA change from, only a tweak or two to my funding so they had more economic development.

[Antonin]

Originally posted by TrainWreck20
Indirectly, he did.....his $/hr estimate would indicate that, based on his experience so far, he plans on playing it many, many hours...which would probably mean he likes it

That's my interpretation of what Ghost said.

[vee4473]

i thought he said that the "bad" reviews told him to buy it.

and that his $ estimation was a guess that he will love it because the bad reviews described things he would love. not that he actually played yet, just is anticipating long play time based on bad reviews.

he can clear it up next post.

[Ghostbear]

Greetings

I've only had two hours to actually play it, so any review would be silly.

My impressions are that its deep, complex, and I'm actually going to have to LEARN how to play it.

I find that an irresistable challenge.

My point on the bad reviews was that most of what they hated is what I really like about a game. For instance, (like in SE IV) you are JUST GETTING STARTED after 10 or 20 hours of real time.

This is, after all, a galactic empire not The SIMS.

Despite the incredibly infuriating IGMOO boards, the arrogance of the developers, and the delays, I have no problem rewarding them with my $50 simply because they built a game in my favorite genre.

However, I have to say that the inaccessibility of the game, specifically the menu system and the lack of a tutorial are going to be major obstacle to commercial success. I'm afraid that might translate into a lack of patches.

I'm also concerned that all the comments on "You gotta try the MP" are simply attempts to cover up problems with the AI in SP. While my brothers an I are planning on MP games, I can't imagine that there is a wide market for a 100 hour long MP game.

GB

[drsparnum]

MP

Alot of people say there isn't a wide market for multiplayer TBS games but I think it may be underestimated. I plan to play this game with all my friends from college who liked MOO2 - MP for me is the chief draw.

I also play a regular RPG with a gaming group once a week.

I mention these two things because in all cases we directly connect to each others and do not go through gamespy. If gamespy connections are used as the sole gauge of multiplayer usage (especially with a long game like MOO3 where i would rather play with people I know and trust) then it is underestimating the number of players utilizing multiplayer - perhaps sorely underestimating it. I don't know how much. I don't see how anyone could know.

[mick-o-matic]

Ghostbears' point is an important one. MP should not be used to sell MOO3. Most players will not involve themselves in a 100 hour MP game.

A game of Civ3 takes me 3 months.

I still have to wait until monday before release in Australia and so reading the forums is the only way to know if it going to be a worthwhile / worthless exercise.
I am sure though that it will sell like crazy and as such I am sure that there will be no problems with patches.

As a veteran of CIV, CIV2, CIV3, MOM, CtP, Ctp2, MOO, MOO2. Most of these games started out much less than perfect and got better (some just stayed bad - ctp)

Anyone remember Moo2 before it was patched? It was really disappointing for a time there.

So even if it is bad to start with - I will make the initial investment and watch it get better with time.

[Ghostbear]

I'm not so sure

I am sure though that it will sell like crazy and as such I am sure that there will be no problems with patches.

I wonder how sales are going? I think its more and more apparent that A) The beta testers were either "in on it" or very carefully screened and B) The "simultaneous release was designed to prevent loss of sales due to word of mouth.

As to patches, there are now a lot of posts from Chantz or Rantz or whoever that make me wonder how much patching we're going to see.

For instance, if there is a "killer" AI, why not just release it?

The game may be impossible to patch.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

I hate to spoil it but MoO3 is anything but complex. At first glance it appears to be because it comes with no instructions but it actually ends up being far too simple. There are very little decisions to make, it is closer to the Sim series than anything else because the human player is regulated to simply clicking the end turn button and observing what the empire did.

The reviews about it being far too complex were people assuming there were undiscovered elements that simply aren't there.

[Harry Seldon]

If memory serves, the contest "winners" were some of the loudest supporters of the game, with one or two exceptions. Is it just an amazing coincidence that at least one of the MOO mods from IG was chosen? And why only test with twenty-five freakin beta testers?!? That makes me mad every time I can't vote on a resolution or need to find something in the galactic encyclopedia.

[Arnelos]

GF,

Have some patience... you just haven't "gotten it" yet.

This game is NOT a simple matter of you just clicking the turn button, though I did go through stage where that's what I was doing.

You see, I started out trying to micromanage everything and not understanding much.

Then I realized the AI could just do a lot for me and let it do so.

Then, after playing a few times, I realized that while the AI is pretty good, it's just not realistic to expect any programmers to program an AI that can accurately anticipate the details of your situation and how YOU want to cope with them.

At that point, I started taking a more active hand in my empire's development, especially as I started to understand what some of the technologies actually DID.

So as I play more, I find myself taking a more and more active role in the development of my empire, coming back from the stage I was at where I did little but hit the end turn button.

The true beauty of this game was then exposed to me: I was taking a more active role in the development of my empire not because I was micromanaging everything, but that I now better understood how to apply effective means of macromanagement and the minimum of effective micromanagement to provide direction (my chosen direction, whatever that may be) to an otherwise directionless AI.

The AI can fairly comptently manage things for you and slog your empire forward at its own pace. But when you really start to get a feel for this game is when you learn how to AUGMENT what the AI is capable of doing by telling it where to go and delving into details in those situations where it is most needed (your homeworld at the start of the game, key border colonies in the mid-game, magnate civs, your own chosen optimal fleet composition, etc.).

It's at the point where I realized that THIS is what this game is about, that the game "clicked". It took me an inordinant number of gaming hours to reach this point, but I'm now finding it near impossible to put the game down.

I'm now playing a modified Evon (my favorite race so far) on a Huge spiral galaxy map, 16 opponents, with diplo victory turned off (I've won several games by diplo win and now consider that victory option to be the cheap way out... I want a bigger game ).

The war I spent all of last night (5-6 hours of play?) fighting to conquer the infadel Meklars (who were the second largest in the galaxy while I was first) was one of the most fun gameplay experiences I have EVER had. Empire management, espionage, fleet combat, ground combat, the works.

And even after that considerable conquest and that I'm the largest empire in the galaxy by far, I own maybe 6-8% of the stars on the map. I have a looooong way to go... and I'm looking forward to every minute of it.