The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary?

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: eyegore
With how aggravating it is to get win95/98 games working today, this is my worry too.

Fun read. Not sure if it is true or not, but I would not doubt it

When it comes to old games, it is often better not to try them again, anyways. What was fun 15 years ago is not always fun today, and good memories can be damaged.

[Nanaki]

You want my biggest complaint in regards to MOO3?

Aesthetics.

MOO2 was absolutly beautiful. Each race had its own skinned UI, and, quite unlike most 4Xs, you interacted with your own race in every sub-menu, as a Mrrshan you interacted with a Mrrshan science officer in the research screen, etc etc etc. The game, for an ancient, entirely 2D based game, provided a bucketload of visual feedback to everything you did. Everything you did provided visual feedback.

MOO3 scrapped all of that. Entirely. The only visual feedback you are ever given is static leader portraits which usually looked like crap, and the animated low-quality 3D crap racial portraits in diplomacy. Even worse is that, due to the reduced racial variety, you often found yourself looking at multiple varieties of sentient rock, gasbags, lizards, bugs, and robots. Even in ship combat all of the ships are just mere clusters of dots flying in perfect formation.

Even ground combat was visually dull. You land troops on a planet than watch a rotating orb of the planet in question have random explosion .gifs generated on it until the battle was concluded. You do not even know what your own troops look like, even Distant Worlds provides better flavor and give you racial themed troops with the graphic sets to match.

[eyegore]

Visuals are more important than often given credit. The most off putting thing about a game such as: Fallen Enchantress is the horrible bland art making all attempts to get into the Lore and the game Futile- although feature wise on paper it should be the best grand daddy game of them all. RTW2, with it's iPhone like GUI also removes the player from the Lore- as the actual GUI setup to find anything at all LORE wise requires one to dig past onions of screens to a database not even stored within the game directory. How different the visual presentation was compared to RTW1, or worse, RTW modded with EB that plastered the Lore all through the GUI. Forget the intial bugs or the gameplay changes- the visual eye soar was enough to make the player hit quite. And as I remember the bright colors of the GUI of MOO3 was anything but sci-fi. It was more romper room-- for those old enough to remember that kiddie show.

Another Matrix release which I thought the faction art could be improved (though the map art is excellent) is Pandora:First Contact. It's an excellent game and this is the mod I made for it-

tm.asp?m=3480502

The HD vid shows the comparisons. I don't concider myself an artist but i think i managed to do a fine job regardless.

[Unforeseen]

Well of course DW provides better flavor and visuals it's ALOT newer.

Your entitled to your opinion and all, but a large community of players disagree with you. Most of us have moved on to newer games but after installing mods like Strawberry, Tropical, Chocolate etc and practically being able to add/change whatever we wanted with only a few limitations creating a VAST tech tree we turned the game into a great success that wasn't focused on "visuals", but instead immersion and gameplay. You have to remember, it was a turn based game. Not real time, and it's arguable whether ground combat should need animations at all since it's a space strategy game not a ground combat strategy game. I don't even pay attention to the visuals for THAT aspect of this game at all.

Then there is the ship combat. First of all "dots" is not accurate. You can zoom in and see that they are clearly NOT dots. Also, the formations thing while not very game play oriented is not entirely an unrealistic concept.

Also, the races. There were plenty of races for a 2OO star galaxy. Duplicates? As long as you did not set the game up to generate more empires than there were races you would not ever have a "duplicate" unless it was your own race. You can easily make that not happen with a simple spreadsheet edit.

I played MOO3 for YEARS, i played games that lasted for thousands of turns. Fought battles between thousands of ships(thanks to mods], developed epic stories, fought impossible wars against cyborgs with 1Ox the number of ships that i had. I have yet to fight such a war in DW, the AI just throws it's ships at me on suicide missions. MOO3 AI would send thousands of ships from star system to star system and wipe me out if i wasn't careful. I certainly never experienced any kind of epic game on MOO2.

Again your entitled to your opinion, but don't talk about it like the whole world agrees with you. So anyways, this thread has gone way off topic. It's supposed to be about DW2, not some misguided opinions about some other ancient game.

[Nanaki]

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

Well of course DW provides better flavor and visuals it's ALOT newer.

How do you explain MOO2, then?

Most of us have moved on to newer games but after installing mods like Strawberry, Tropical, Chocolate etc and practically being able to add/change whatever we wanted with only a few limitations creating a VAST tech tree we turned the game into a great success that wasn't focused on "visuals", but instead immersion and gameplay. You have to remember, it was a turn based game. Not real time, and it's arguable whether ground combat should need animations at all since it's a space strategy game not a ground combat strategy game. I don't even pay attention to the visuals for THAT aspect of this game at all.

Aesthetics is an extremely, extremely important part of any game. It is the defining difference between losing yourself in an alien world, and looking at a bunch of dry, soulless spreadsheets. Weither it is turn-based or not is completely irrellevant, I have played plenty of turn-based games that still provide craploads of visual feedback.

Your entitled to your opinion and all, but a large community of players disagree with you.

Even the worst made of games will have its apologists.

Then there is the ship combat. First of all "dots" is not accurate. You can zoom in and see that they are clearly NOT dots. Also, the formations thing while not very game play oriented is not entirely an unrealistic concept.

You do realize that, even zoomed in all the way, you can only barely make out the rough shapes of the craft, and even at those zoom levels the lack of detailing becomes obvious considering that the ships have no lights, no engine trails, nothing but a model floating around the game.

As for formations? Seriously? You expect ships to remain in perfect formation during the middle of battle?

Also, the races. There were plenty of races for a 2OO star galaxy. Duplicates? As long as you did not set the game up to generate more empires than there were races you would not ever have a "duplicate" unless it was your own race. You can easily make that not happen with a simple spreadsheet edit.

I never said duplicates, infact, the specific term I used was 'texture swap'. More specifically, the sub-races. All of the created sub-races in MOO3 were just visual alterations of the other races, Meklons and Cynoids? Same damn thing. There is definatly reduced variety when you cut out six unique, interesting races and replace them with, well, another robot race, another gas bag race, two more varieties of lizard race, another fish race, a bug race, a human lookalike race, and finally, oh so innovative, a zombie race.

Again your entitled to your opinion, but don't talk about it like the whole world agrees with you.

I speak for nobody but myself, and you speak for nobody but yourself. Do you even realize how many people abandoned the 4X genre because of MOO3?

[fenrislokison]

Regarding alien races, i don't mind cats, insects, bears, rats or whatever. Not because i find them realistic, but because the'yre in the folklore of sci fi since star trek, star wars and others galactica and V.

But if i was to try to imagine a realistic space faring race, i would say that the necessary characteristic would be the ability to manipulate tools (with hands, tentacles or any organic way to grab items).
For example, i wouldn't believe in a space faring dolphin race because i would ask myself how the hell did they made their ships? But space faring insects are fine with me, as long as they use tools. Bees hives for example is a form of tool, the same kind of tool as our houses. Spiders' web is another form of tool.
I don't really believe in starship troopers or zerg insects because i don't believe in organic creatures being able to channel as much energy as a machine.

Another characteristic i find necessary, albeit debatable, is a reasonnable size in order to have a reasonnable-sized brain (or something alike). I'm not an expert at all in biology, but from what i've read from here and there, brain size is definetely important for "intelligence".
I don't believe in Bernard Weber's ants for example.

But all this is only valid if we're talking about a "first-generation intelligent" species, i mean a species that has developped from nothing but its own abilities.
Let's go back to the dolphins: let's say they have the potential to be "intelligent" as in "space faring capable", we could imagine a scenario where humans create tools to communicate with them, then give them a way to communicate with computers and machines, either "vocal" interface or cyberinterface and then either have the humans self destruct or dolphins destroy humans or even just a human/dolphin society.

So Lore can be used to explain pretty much everything we could find in space even if it doesn't make sense.

[Lucian]

ORIGINAL: ldog

ORIGINAL: Lucian

ORIGINAL: DeadlyShoe

MOO3 was unpolished and unfinished and that's what killed it, didn't have anything to do with its racial selection

It's actually pretty fun today if you slap a bunch of bugfix patches and mods on it.

Er..... no actually, its a massive steaming pile of crap no matter whether player patches have made it technically "playable" or not.

Can't we just forget it ever existed? I think I poured gasoline on my disc.

Good policy, but hopefully you set it on fire afterwards. It's the only way to be sure.

[Lucian]

ORIGINAL: fenrislokison

For example, i wouldn't believe in a space faring dolphin race because i would ask myself how the hell did they made their ships?

Check out the Liir who are the space faring dolphin race from Sword of the Stars I and II. Their ability to operate a technological society is explained by powerful telekinetic - based psionics and powered "battlesuits" with robot limbs. Of course you first have to swallow the idea that psionics and TK is even possible.... Makes sense if you can though.

[fenrislokison]

As you said, i have to swallow psionics ^^

If a species has developped technology by the use of telekinesis as a replacement for a manipulating organ, then it implies telekinesis doesn't require "intelligence".

Since IRL, there has been no evidence whatsoever of any telekinetic ability in the myriads of species existing on Earth, i can safely say that such an ability is far more unrealistic than grabbing tentacles, chitinous fingers or something like that.

I'm not saying i don't like them like Eyegore, just that a psionic dolphin (or bug, parrot, starfish, whatever) require more suspension of disbelief from me than a talking cat (to bring them back in the discussion :p).


That said, the Deafening Empire of the Telekinetic Parrots sounds cool! [:D]

[Nanaki]

ORIGINAL: Lucian

Check out the Liir who are the space faring dolphin race from Sword of the Stars I and II. Their ability to operate a technological society is explained by powerful telekinetic - based psionics and powered "battlesuits" with robot limbs. Of course you first have to swallow the idea that psionics and TK is even possible.... Makes sense if you can though.

One of my favorite sci-fi 'races' out there were the Vell-os from EV Nova. Even though technically human, they were still seperated from humanity by nearly several thousand years and had never gone through the Industrial Revolution, they travelled through space using spaceships built entirely out of psionic energy.

Of course, such would not really be doable in the context of Distant Worlds, since it would likely require a racial specific tech tree.

But is still an interesting idea none the less.

[Lucian]

ORIGINAL: Nanaki

ORIGINAL: Lucian

Check out the Liir who are the space faring dolphin race from Sword of the Stars I and II. Their ability to operate a technological society is explained by powerful telekinetic - based psionics and powered "battlesuits" with robot limbs. Of course you first have to swallow the idea that psionics and TK is even possible.... Makes sense if you can though.

One of my favorite sci-fi 'races' out there were the Vell-os from EV Nova. Even though technically human, they were still seperated from humanity by nearly several thousand years and had never gone through the Industrial Revolution, they travelled through space using spaceships built entirely out of psionic energy.

Of course, such would not really be doable in the context of Distant Worlds, since it would likely require a racial specific tech tree.

But is still an interesting idea none the less.

Definitely interesting, they sound a little like the Advent from Sins of a Solar Empire. Physically human but based on psionic rather than material - based tech. Obviously the race you describe has pushed the psionic angle well beyond anything the Advent ever achieved though.

[xatharas]

not only do I think they should bring out DW2, I believe they should do it via a kickstarter. Loving this game, but there's not much else to add to it with the current engine and AI.

[Unforeseen]

Oo i like the kickstarter idea.

[Bingeling]

No reason to use kickstarter to summon hype and butthurt if you don't need the money. I hope that DWU has given a good amount of cash to fund Elliot and maybe a few more resources to make a DW2.

[Unforeseen]

Perhaps but the more money they raise the more help they can hire, the more time they will put into it, the better engine they can develop etc etc etc etc. More money equals better game. There is no such thing as enough money when it comes to game development unless you are EA and want to half ass everything.

[Bingeling]

Software does not work like that.

Have you ever seen a crap AAA title?

[Nanaki]

The most important factor is not money but management. The Vanguard debacle is a huge example of this, Brad McQuaid got thrown out by microsoft after he blew 100M and could not even produce a playable demo. He is very lucky that SOE wanted him back otherwise he would probably be out of a job.

[Tormodino]

There are plenty of multimillion failures floating around, but I think the DW dev team isn't really registering on that same scale. A few more people messing with this game would have been a huge benefit.
I hope Universe was sufficiently succesful to fund a bigger dev team for whatever they have planned.

[eyegore]

Regarding alien races, i don't mind cats, insects, bears, rats or whatever. Not because i find them realistic, but because the'yre in the folklore of sci fi since star trek, star wars and others galactica and V.

But if i was to try to imagine a realistic space faring race, i would say that the necessary characteristic would be the ability to manipulate tools (with hands, tentacles or any organic way to grab items).
For example, i wouldn't believe in a space faring dolphin race because i would ask myself how the hell did they made their ships? But space faring insects are fine with me, as long as they use tools. Bees hives for example is a form of tool, the same kind of tool as our houses. Spiders' web is another form of tool.
I don't really believe in starship troopers or zerg insects because i don't believe in organic creatures being able to channel as much energy as a machine.

Another characteristic i find necessary, albeit debatable, is a reasonnable size in order to have a reasonnable-sized brain (or something alike). I'm not an expert at all in biology, but from what i've read from here and there, brain size is definetely important for "intelligence".
I don't believe in Bernard Weber's ants for example.

But all this is only valid if we're talking about a "first-generation intelligent" species, i mean a species that has developped from nothing but its own abilities.
Let's go back to the dolphins: let's say they have the potential to be "intelligent" as in "space faring capable", we could imagine a scenario where humans create tools to communicate with them, then give them a way to communicate with computers and machines, either "vocal" interface or cyberinterface and then either have the humans self destruct or dolphins destroy humans or even just a human/dolphin society.

So Lore can be used to explain pretty much everything we could find in space even if it doesn't make sense.


It's not that i dislike Cats, bugs or whatnots. and all the arguments of "it could be" really is missing the point as well- the reason I dislike them is because they are in essense "DEFAULT" for every 4x game coming down the pike, and every dev going simply copy/paste 's them from previous games and calls it quites....hense no real work ever done regarding LORE and is exactly why the races in general are regarded by most as 'ho-hum' because we've played them a zillion times already.

When i see gems like Emperor of the Fading Suns or a good wh40k or a DUNE --and the richness of it's LORE- and see the blandless of Dr. Dolittle's Default alien races in every 4x space game...I say it's about time they stop being so lazy and give an honest effort to create something with a little more depth in a universe that could be called "distant Worlds' when you see it rather than ...Ah, the races from EVERY GAME EVER DONE! how.....boring.

When i see the races of Star trek I KNOW it's startrek. Kingons! Romulons!, when I see the races from Battleship Galatica...I say, AH! Battleship Galactica....but when I see the races for DW it could be the races for Star drive, Moo4, Endless Space, Gal Civ......and on and on...there is absolutely nothing here to screams "This is distant Worlds!"....but rather...this is copyboy world...welcome to a vast generic default where the universe is ruled by default and the huge threat is....default.

Now i get the fact EVERYTHING HAS BEEN DONE before....what people do not get is cat vs dog is about all that is being done period. To me that is a very shallow way to do races. The dog will war with cat, the cat will war with hermit the frog, hermit will war with jimmy the cricket...and overall each race will be defined that way aside from some shallow default government bonus's....so there you are...took me all of half a day...I'm done...now going on to the rest of the game.

Mass effect was basically derived from the 2 star wars games Bioware had done previous...but they still put forth enough effort that you know it's Mass Effect when you see it. Emperor of the Fading Suns is wh40k meets Dune, but you know it's Fading Suns when you see it.

That is what DW2 needs. When I'm playing a race and I meet another one I should not be saying to myself..."AH, a cat race. Well. I'm a dog race....attack!" Instead I'd like something a little richer, I want to be saying, "AH the vorarkiii! Worshippers of GORI, reponsible for the 4th age dust war of the 9 red suns fueling their addiction to vers plants and discounting the 5 testiments of bagna!

[Nanaki]

ORIGINAL: eyegore
When i see gems like Emperor of the Fading Suns or a good wh40k or a DUNE --and the richness of it's LORE- and see the blandless of Dr. Dolittle's Default alien races in every 4x space game...I say it's about time they stop being so lazy and give an honest effort to create something with a little more depth in a universe that could be called "distant Worlds' when you see it rather than ...Ah, the races from EVERY GAME EVER DONE! how.....boring.

I have no clue about Fading Suns or Dune, as I honestly have not read into either franchise, but Warhammer 40K I do know, so I will go with that. Warhammer 40K is not original. Infact, its races have roots in Tolkien which has been copied over and over more than anything else on this planet. Warhammer is also an excellent example that you hardly need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. You can easily take even the most overused races and throw enough changes at them to make them feel fresh again.

When i see the races of Star trek I KNOW it's startrek. Kingons! Romulons!, when I see the races from Battleship Galatica...I say, AH! Battleship Galactica....but when I see the races for DW it could be the races for Star drive, Moo4, Endless Space, Gal Civ......and on and on...there is absolutely nothing here to screams "This is distant Worlds!"....but rather...this is copyboy world...welcome to a vast generic default where the universe is ruled by default and the huge threat is....default.

There is no MOO4. MOO franchise died with 3.

Also, MOO, Endless Space, and Galciv have completely different racial rosters which pokes an enormous hole in your argument.

Distant World's are actually fairly similar to MOO (but some notable differences), but considering MOO has been dead for over a decade, I think DW can be forgiven for that, especially since MOO has been the only game in the genre to produce a memorable roster, but a lot of that has to do with the huge amount of visual feedback it offered compared to other 4X games.

Mass effect was basically derived from the 2 star wars games Bioware had done previous...but they still put forth enough effort that you know it's Mass Effect when you see it. Emperor of the Fading Suns is wh40k meets Dune, but you know it's Fading Suns when you see it.

I have no clue what Fading Suns is, aside from it aping the crap out of medieval europe according to tvtropes. Mass Effect? Yeah, Mass Effect has millions of dollars of graphical assets from models/textures to concept art. You can turn even the most boring, least interesting races (*COUGH* ASARI *COUGH*) into something with that amount of firepower thrown at it. DW cannot possibly compete with that.

That is what DW2 needs. When I'm playing a race and I meet another one I should not be saying to myself..."AH, a cat race. Well. I'm a dog race....attack!" Instead I'd like something a little richer, I want to be saying, "AH the vorarkiii! Worshippers of GORI, reponsible for the 4th age dust war of the 9 red suns fueling their addiction to vers plants and discounting the 5 testiments of bagna!

Aside from the fact I never saw a 4X that had both cat and dog races, I generally find that relations are not as simple as you think. Infact, I distinctly remember in my 4X games, I always got along fairly well with the 'warlike' races but the diplomatic 'friendly' races were most unreliable due to their habit of jumping into military alliances with everyone and then accepting call to arms when one of those allies ends up being the xenophobic douchebag whom declares war on everyting.

Nevermind that I consider both examples to be bland. Both are static 'I hate you for arbitrary backstory reason' which are lame. The best casus bellis come from the in-game actions and ambitions of the factions, something Paradox understood very well when they crafted their games. Infact, Paradox games have satisfied my 4X 'itch' for years after the 4X genre crashed, even though their games are not technically 4X, and, in some areas, diplomacy especially, are lightyears ahead of anything the 4X genre has to offer.

Infact, Distant Worlds even acknowleges this a little, with the 'Wants your territory' and 'You are much stronger than us' negative maluses, but you still get rediculous situations like the Quameno peacefully colonizing 1/4 the galaxy with no military and multiple races not giving a crap despite blatent territorial encroachments.