A little message to Mr. Reynolds...

[Capt Dizle]

From UGO Preview:

Graphically, Rise of Nations looks amazing and watching two armies battle is a visual treat. Plumes of smoke rise from cannons as they fire and infantry spray bullets from side to side."

I justed wanted to let you know, Brian, that the gamers out here don't care about any of this. We want gameplay. How it looks and sounds is beside the point.

I looked at the screenies and saw what appears to be a building with a health bar and flames coming out of it. You do realize if you can't come up with something more mature than this that you will be boiled in oil. We don't want no more damn dumb kid games.

jt

[Capt Dizle]

I mean, are you going to give us another dose of the utter stupidity of a bunch of archers shooting arrows at a barn?

[Capt Dizle]

This stuff is unacceptable please remove it all.

UGO again

Generals are even more influential, acting as single units that can change the tide of battle as they can create decoys, which are defensive units that exactly duplicate another troop type, but with none of the offensive power and twice the ability to absorb damage. For someone not paying attention, we can imagine these units making someone very nervous. Generals can also order an ambush, which renders the army temporarily invisible as if stealthily attacking or can call for a forced march in order to move the element faster. They are governed by their Craft rating, which acts almost as mana does for a wizard, when the ability is in use, the Craft level goes down, and when it's not, it climbs back up.

Brian, we are not having any of this nonsense. If you need help with concepts please PM me.

[Capt Dizle]

Same review!

An interesting idea with infantry is that they can morph into other infantry types like flamethrowers for short-range attacks, machine gunners for heavier assaults, paratroopers so units can drop into other friendly territory, etc.

morph? There is no morphing in serious games?

[chronocrator]

Re: A little message to Mr. Reynolds...

Originally posted by jimmytrick
I justed wanted to let you know, Brian, that the gamers out here don't care about any of this. We want gameplay. How it looks and sounds is beside the point.

I looked at the screenies and saw what appears to be a building with a health bar and flames coming out of it. You do realize if you can't come up with something more mature than this that you will be boiled in oil. We don't want no more damn dumb kid games.

Well, why do good graphics make a bad game? If Civ2 had Civ3 graphics would that make it a worse game?
BTW this game needs to appeal to more than a few Civ gamers, if Brian wants to reach AoE or EE players he needs some good graphics otherwise Big Huge won't last very long.

And a health bar makes a game a dumb kid game?

Obviously there is not much to discuss here...

[Capt Dizle]

A health bar on a building is certainly a damn dumb concept.

One of the reasons that pc games are such crap these days is that 90% of the resources go into sound and graphics and only 10% into gameplay. If you are the kind of gamer that disagrees with this then, I agree we have nothing to discuss.

[WarpStorm]

What is a better way to show the level of damage to the building than a "health bar"? Color coding them would be fugly (this is what the military actually uses, I know from experience), percent damage number too. There is a reason most games show damage this way these days. It is easy too understand and it's not too ugly.

[Capt Dizle]

I don't really mind the health bar, its the whole concept of attacking buildings that bothers me. Again, I have limited experience with RTS games and am only considering this one because of the great work Brian did on Civ2 and SMAC.

I remember in warcraft and starcraft you would attack buildingswith swords and bows, this is so lame.

I would think that more elegant ways of destroying or capturing buildings can be found. As long as we are not going to see a group of spearmen hacking away at a farm or mine like it was an elephant I can live with a health bar.

You should be able to set fire to a building and leave it to burn. Special units would have to put it out and still others repair it. Use explosives or bombardment. Capture by simply occuping and holding (put it under armed guard). Convert it to your use by retooling (another special ability unit needed).

I should be able to discern the condition of a building by its appearance. This is where graphics can contribute to gameplay. I don't want a health bar. I have never seen a health bar hovering over a building in real life. Detailed information about the status of a building should be available by right clicking on it, if it is under your control or if you have suitable units nearby. The pace of the game should be slow enough for you to have time to do these things.

Pacing should be controled by a dial so that the gamer can customize as he likes, including pause.

Do we really want another clickfest with such simple mechanics as we have seen in the past?

[Capt Dizle]

Instead of having a bunch of special ability units perhaps you should have a unit workshop where you could assign multiple special abilities to units.

Like SMAC. But no morphing.

[Kataphraktoi]

i have a rifleman.i want a machine gunner. i tell my rifleman to ''morph'' into a machine gunner. he goes to the armoury,gets a machine gun out,basic training and bam he is a machine gunner.

my understanding of how this works anyway...although they might not show the rifleman going wherever to pick up equipment,instead just substracting recources and a little time to finish.

[asleepathewheel]

Re: This stuff is unacceptable please remove it all.

Originally posted by jimmytrick
UGO again


Brian, we are not having any of this nonsense. If you need help with concepts please PM me.

roflmao-Brian PM'ing you! haha. good one.
I agree with some of your points, though. I would rather have gameplay than graphics. But I would rather have graphics than a text based game. I don't see why there can't be both these days.

but, you've seen how many people have b*tched about no wonder movies in civ3. unfortunately that's what people expect these days. A lot of fluff.

[Kataphraktoi]

A health bar on a building is certainly a damn dumb concept

i guess you would prefer not having any way of telling how badly damaged your buildings are?

[XarXo]

Re: A little message to Mr. Reynolds...

Originally posted by jimmytrick
I looked at the screenies and saw what appears to be a building with a health bar and flames coming out of it. You do realize if you can't come up with something more mature than this that you will be boiled in oil. We don't want no more damn dumb kid games.

FINALLY!! One has CLAIMED that CASTLES CAN'T BE DESTROYED WITH A BUNCH OF CAVALRIERS WITH SWORDS!! IS PROBABLY THAT IN THIS GAME WE CAN HAVE A RESISTANCE INDEX?? YES?? PLEASE!!!!!

[Peter Triggs]

I guess those graphics are reflecting this:

But the attacker is not without advantages; you can "take over" an enemy city by attacking it to reduce it to zero health. Then, as long as you have more military units present then the defender, the city -- and all the economic and cultural buildings around it -- becomes yours. Because of these changes, borders tend to shift realistically across the map during gameplay, and battles tend to rage around key economic cities that are often blasted but rarely destroyed.

I think that's from the Gamespy review. I recall reading another review that said that this makes for much more interesting battles: there's a time lag within which the opposition can retake the city quite easily if you're not careful.

[s_qwert63]

i agree with the idea of attacking buildings is just plain dumb...
i really hate it when a few guys with swords start razing down my town centres in AOE. why not make buildings vulnerable to assault units like cannons, trebuchets etc. and not guys with swords.
Imagine how dumb it would look if you would see a guy IRL trying to smash a huge castle with a sword.
or a dude with an AK47 shooting at Fort Brag.