It's looking very good, but is it going to be flat?

[FrostyBoy]

It looks like you're going to be successful with this game no matter what you do at this point. But if I was a game designer and this was the game I had made up to now, then I would step back and say "Right what else does it need?".

And I think I would see that the game might appear flat.

What would Civilization be like, if you couldn't see your opponents face? Flat? Getting boring quickly? Frustrating even?

I am not sure how you have planned to create the leaders, I remember in other similar games, the computer would randomly pick a leader's name for any of the AI players and that would be it.

But if you have specific leaders, like Queen Elizabeth, ruling England, and you could actually see her face (And it doesn't have to animate like Civ3), how would interaction with other civs be affected? Would it suddenly create emotional depthness in the game?


This is just my point of view of course, but if this game is primarily about war, there's no chance in hell I would buy this game. It's not that I don't like war in games, it's just that war is becoming more of a chore than fun. Warcraft 3 for example, when I played it, I realised, yes there's a story, but what is the point of all this raise an army and destroy player x y and z?

I mean come on people, let's get creative with our games for once, I've said this before; Diplomacy, Trade, Resources, City Building and Exploration should all be as important as each other, and that we are not solely doing all of this just to fight a war that has no point to it.

[ColdFever]

Knowing and loving the games from B.R., I am pretty sure RoN won't be flat at all. However, your assumption that RoN will primarily be about war will probably be right. I think the superb preview from HeavenGames currently gives the best impression of what we can expect:

http://www.heavengames.com/ads/e3-2002/ron-preview1.shtml

Even though I also would love to see exploration and diplomacy equally important as war in a game about history (as ALL this is what history is about), I am afraid this won't be possible in a RTS game that is supposed to be played in 1 hour. You probably have to work hard to stand the pace of several thousand years compacted into one hour and have little time left for the subtle art of diplomacy. The background of people who are working on RoN also gives a strong hint of what kind of gameplay we can expect (AoK meets Starcraft meets Civ). However, this mixture is probably very entertaining to play and from a financial view a definite winner - and this is what BHG needs for the first effort.

However: to my knowledge RoN will come with a GREAT scripting and editor engine that probably will set new standards. As there are great modders in the community (like yourself), the community perhaps has a chance to extend the gameplay for more demanding players who prefer brains to blood.

[Alex]

From what we can read about the game in previews and see in screenshots, it seems that the essential game engine is already set up and working. I guess that, from now on, they will be polishing the game and adding things to it, so I don't think the final product will be flat.
But I have to agree with ColdFever: RoN seems to be about war, but that is something that could be expected, given the nature of this genre (RTS).

EDIT: it is 'essential' and not 'essencial', Alex. You're not writing in Portuguese.

[Rohag]

I expressed some of my potential concerns about RoN in another thread (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=55709), but I’m not sure BHG has shown off the game’s less-militant side.

Based on other published previews, as well as information presented in these and the RoN Pantheon forums by Tim Train of BHG, we should be able to set up the game so that military conflict will be rare or even non-existent. We’ve heard about the “Tech Race” game where players must “wage peace” without fighting, and the first one to the Information Age wins. An earlier preview (GameSpy, March 2002) mentioned that the rate of attrition could be adjusted, making military adventures more or less inviting.

Of course, “waging peace” is not nearly as sexy as rampant destruction, and this may be why BHG hasn’t played up that aspect of RoN. I don’t know, though, and your assessment that RoN is all about war may be correct.

[tniem]

Another thing to remember is that many of those writing the reviews are not interested in the game's nonmilitary side. While that is important to us, it is not for RTS fans who have never had a game with that much diplomatic strategy (don't say E.U. because that never was big with RTSers but instead strategy gamers). So here is RoN, a very promising title that is getting coverage from mainstream RTSers that may not care about diplomacy and peace options. Brian has said that it is in there and until we get closer to launch I really don't expect much of that in previews. About the best we can hope for is a demo.

[XarXo]

The development graphics shown in the BHG RoN site are 3D almost in the units, but this is only for generate the needed sprite movements, sorry, but I believe that is all 2D like AoE.

[Graham@BHG]

RoN gives players a great many options for playing the game the way that they want to. If you're in the mood for an EE or AOE type random map game, that's fine and dandy. If you're in the mood for a game that spans several hours and involves making/breaking alliances, you can do that too. There are a great many possibilities in between those as well.

With so many units that are designed for glorious death and destruction though, people do tend to spend quite a bit of time on that aspect of the game. (they look damn cool too) Hopefully in future previews, when the game is further along, authors can explore some of the other game types/options in more detail.

It is great fun to test a game that can be played at different paces and in different ways, let me tell you!

XarXo, I'm not certain what you are saying. Animated things in the game are indeed 3D. Buildings are 2D but with some 3D elements to them. Terrain is fully 3D. (hope that helps some?)

[Capt Dizle]

Can I modify the hit points of units and their other combat stats? Can I modify tech cost. If not, no beans.

[ColdFever]

Originally posted by Graham@BHG
It is great fun to test a game that can be played at different paces and in different ways, let me tell you!

Welcome to the board, Graham, it is nice to have some of the BHG magicians here. Can you tell us what you do at BHG, as I cannot find a BHG team member with that name here:

http://www.bighugegames.com/team/index.html

Could you encourage the other BHG members also to use @BHG in their name using this board? This way we could search BHG posts by using "match partial name" at

http://apolyton.net/forums/search.php?s=

[Graham@BHG]

jimmytrick, both good ideas. I'm not sure if that's being worked on at the moment, but I'll mention it.

Hiya ColdFever, thanks for the welcome! I'm the guy who should be updating the team page right now...I'm helping to look after the BHG website, help RoN fansites where I can, and I even help to test the game. (ie play in every spare moment)

The BHG team is often working looong hours on the game, like tonight for instance. They stop in for a read now and then but most are slaving away to meet deadlines and the like.

[XarXo]

Originally posted by Graham@BHG XarXo, I'm not certain what you are saying. Animated things in the game are indeed 3D. Buildings are 2D but with some 3D elements to them. Terrain is fully 3D. (hope that helps some?)

Thanks Graham!

Well, my english isn't especially a good one , I tried to say that usually game designers generate a 3D animation of a unit for capture the movement and create the needed frames for the animation. But reading this I see that this is an old system.

This game is (ONLY in graphical generation) an AoK clone. Empire Earth is full 3D, but look how eye-candy things aren't enough for making a good game

I've to say another thing, BTW, can you make a correct ambientation of the game? In AoK/Command&Conquer for example we build bases/a city in a important sector, that's all, but in this game we build cities for manage an area that has the size of a state like Andorra when the minimum should be Belgium This could be easily done smalling the size of the natural ambientation (except for mountains) like trees and rocks.

Good Luck I started very critical with this game but I believe that you are doing a great job!

[Alex]

Graham, I'd also like to welcome you to these boards and to say that it is always good to have someone from the development team sharing his ideas with us, the gamers.

I'm more and more interested in RoN, I'm expecting it to be a very good game.