I would like to know what YOU think of Games Today. As for me, Here is my Rant upon the matter. Seems to me that the Big Game Review Sites are full of Hype, such that it is really hard to get a Honest and Straight Opinion now days. This only pushes the Game Companies to feel like they can continue to Drop less than Complete, buggy and mediocre Games on to the market, at prices much higher than what the game should be priced at. I sometimes get the Feeling that the Companies think Gamers are all under 12 and have an IQ of a rock. They do not seem to understand that Games should be FUN to play and not only a Thumb & Knee Jerk exercise. I think this is largely due to the Console Port Mentality pushed by Greed and a Give me all the Chips Syndrome. What bothers me most about this, is that players keep throwing money at this crap, and receive less an less. Wake Up People, Demand that they Deliver Quality Equal to todays Tech, with some Depth, and Thought put into the Game, NOT the Tired Old Loop of a Name, with nothing but the same old same old, sheep counting, put you to sleep, shallow garbage being pushed as Gold, that we get today. It only takes an Hour or less playing a Game, to realize it is only a Money Grab, or Otherwise something the Developers have a Real Interest in doing. Much like anything else that you love to do, Games show the Heart of the Creators. I have noticed that Gamers who Create Games come closer to the Mark, than the Money Grabbing Suits of Big Game Companies. This is why I am Pumped for Project Spacesector, to be made by GAMERS who Love the Game, Not those who are in it for the love of money. Anyone Remember Apple Trek, or Eamon ? AscII graphics, and text adventure, Games that gave you a Peek into what the Future could be for Games, and also got you hooked, because of the Fun an Enjoyment of the Game. END Rant: Thanks for allowing me to get that off my chest.
I largely agree with your thoughts. Watching the new MOO game (Moo-Cts) morph from the faithful sequel they promised it would be into a shallow, casual-friendly, dumbed-down tablet game designed solely to sell as many units as possible to as broad a range of customer as possible was a bitter, soul-crushing experience. After waiting 20 long years for a good sequel, MOO fans deserved far better, but unfortunately simple, casual-targeted games seem to be the norm now with only the rare, brave dev willing to cater to a more hard-core gaming audience. The irony is that 4x strategy tends to attract a disproportionately large number of more serious hard-core fans (something that NGD Studios seemed utterly clueless about) so the disappointment with MOO-Cts's narrow focus on shallow gameplay and pointless fluff was just huge.
It's unfortunate how MoO:CtS turned out. I was participating in their forum (quality of the forum is a topic for another thread) and what troubled me the most were people asking to add certain features to DLC. Individual didn't just ask for a feature and let WG/NGD sort out how to deliver them, no they asked specifically to add a feature through DLC and remarked they are willing to pay. Such mentality only serves to perpetuate greedy laziness over quality.
Games today would fall into the last category..."the ugly" Let's face it gamers, today, many studios release beta versions as a finished product, full of bugs that should have been corrected prior to launch. (When accounting calls a squeeze, testing is usually the first cut) Apart from this the games themselves, in many cases are too linear and tend to guide you by the hand, boring! If a game has no chance to defeat me why would I play? RPGs are dumbed down (BG2 was the peak) 4X is a laughable, I realize that you have to take certain liberties with realism but come on now. (single planet solar systems, starlanes,etc) It seems that once the big boys got involved in publishing the quality went south. Take a look at CtS They spent so much money on polish and voiceovers only to deliver I title I will not touch. (Already on sale by the way) Lack of resources was not an issue here, rather that the resources went to fluff instead of content. I understand the strategic decision to go after the masses but while there may be more casual gamers than there are gamers of our type, the publisher ignored the fact that more affluent gamers are the ones like us. Moo2 was not complex, it was balanced, games today just aren't how could someone look at a title like Moo2 and decide that it needs to be simplified? Sigh! Graphics are nice and shiny but a pig wearing lipstick would still be a pig. A word to the wise "Never start believing your own propaganda"
As a professional in the gaming industry, I can see this issue from both sides. I agree--you can tell what games are made by devs who truly love gaming, as opposed to those games largely driven by corporate greed. I don't buy into the hype. Many of the big AAA titles out there don't interest me, in large part because they focus so much on flashy graphics and presentation while leaving mechanics, game play, depth, and, ultimately, fun, on the back burner. So the question is--what makes a game good, bad, or ugly? The industry has been studying that very question for some decades. Opinions differ broadly, but there are a number of things that most agree on: -Excellent graphical quality and presentation are only part of a good game. Any game that focuses on just these will be sadly lacking. (See Rhys Son of Rome) -Complexity and depth are not the same thing. Complexity denotes the amount of choices a player has available to them in the game. Depth, on the other hand, is determined by how meaningful those choices are. A very simple game can still have a lot of depth (See Stanley Parable), while a highly complex game can still seem very shallow if the player feels that their choices do not make a significant impact on the outcome of the game. -A good user interface is most often barely noticed, because it makes playing the game highly intuitive to the player. However, a clunky, overly complex, or confusing user interface will invariably make a great game into a mediocre or poor game, because players will see the user interface as a barrier between them and the game play and fun that they seek. There are others, but these are the ones that come to mind at the moment. I am curious to see the opinions of other readers on this forum--what aspects of a game have a significant bearing on whether a game is good, bad, or ugly?
The question you pose has no clear answer but rather some guidelines that need to be followed. A good game to me bay be horrible to you and vice a versa. In this case we would be both right by the way. Look at Armada 2526 gold. it is a simplistic (to me) 4x that has all of the standard ingredients, a good interface, decent graphics etc. Yet the game is boring and no matter how many times I played I just couldn't do so for more than an hour or so. What is missing from this game to cause this? For me, the answer is simple I never felt threatened (no challenge) Colonizing is too easy (no challenge) Exploration is dumbed down to tears (no challenge) In other words the game is poor because it is too easy, too streamlined and seems to have been designed to not be a challenge. Sorry, but if the game can not beat me I have no desire to play. By the way, the lack of ship designing and rigid tech tree did not turn me off but the overall content of the package bored me. (No depth)
What's so wrong about starlanes? I understand that it's not "realistic" but it adds depth to strategy (as turtling can become a strategy without being THE strategy) and balances out tall vs wide empires (tall empires would probably have settled so as to entrench in hard to access areas). Perhaps I'm biased because I love turtling and I hate having to micromanage patrol fleets to chase off raider units. It's tedious and the AI will always make a better job at it than the player. I'm actually surprised that games like Stellaris don't have a better AI when it comes to raiding and defending against raids. Oh well... To come back to the subject at hand: I agree with what most of you said; the greed of the industry don't care about players but only about money. I hate the complacency of Early Access games and how some people can get away by abandoning a project midway (StarDrive anyone?). I hate the cheap money grabs. I hate the cheap replicas. But there's some hope. Some people still care about the community and about gaming. Some people don't see money as the goal but simply as a mean to the end; to make a good game. And with the technological advancements we can hope for very good games in the future indeed. And finally, as it really changed that much? It's like music. We remember the good hits from the past, the Queen, AC/DC, Pink Floyd but we've forgotten the bad and the ugly. There were some very good games in the past too, but there were also some very bad. We simply have to be more experienced discerning the good from the bad and the ugly.
First, let me say that your post is very astute and I agree with it. And now to the question you pose, "What's so wrong about starlanes?" From a certain perspective you could say that there is nothing wrong with them, from another perspective there is a lot. SEV is the only game I play from time to time that features them and that is because so much of the game is different from others yet the play there also suffers because of it. The biggest issue is that by including starlanes, tactics and strategy in particular gets dumbed down to a degree which causes me to lose all interest. Find the wormholes and guard them. send scouts to connected systems. If no one is there, find the wormholes in the newly explored system and guard those. If the system is populated, build up a fleet, assault the system, find the wormholes and guard them. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam. Additional effects of starlanes. A secured system deep in your territory can be forgotten from a military standpoint, no need to garrison it or station some ships there. Ships held in reserve lose their value, you know exactly from where the enemy will arrive, not so if there is free travel. Starlanes tell me what to guard and where to station my assets, I don't really need to think about it, that's not why I play, I like a challenge and starlanes tend to reduce it. I realise of course that this is my personal preference, other players may be comforted by always knowing where the front is and being able to take advantage of it, I on the other hand am bored by it.
I agree that to some extent starlanes may dumb down some of the strategical aspect of the game (and I would add have also the benefit of dumbing it down enough for the sake of gameplay and less micromanagement), however let's compare it with free range of movement across the empty space: - You also know where the enemy will come eventually: to your planets. So instead of fortifying a few wormholes the you fortify your planets. It simply add more tedious to the game. What I hear you saying is that: if I need to micromanage more, it means the challenge is bigger and thus I'm enjoying myself best. It's fine to me but it sounds a tad masochistic ;p I think there could be ways to make starlanes more interesting by perhaps making them fluctuate around and switch throughout the game, or adding new ones as new hyperdrive technologies are discovered, or being able to find hidden temporary starlanes by investing in some resources, etc. But I guess in the end it's all a matter of taste
It is a matter of taste and some of what you propose could sway me to reconsider. Yes the enemy will come at my planets but which ones? Range will have to be taken into account as well as risk assessment and distribution of defensive assets etc, to me that is war not micromanagement, particularly in a well thought out game that can include these strategic considerations without increasing micro-management. I can do a feint without starlanes but not with them, I can be surprised without starlanes but again, not with them. While I do not disparage anyone with a different taste and understand that it is not a question of wrong and right but rather personal preference I am just as much a warrior as I am an explorer or administrator when I play 4Xs. For myself, starlanes dumb down one aspect of the game to the point where I lose interest quickly.
One of my most important reasons for preferring MOO 2 over say MOO 3 or 4 would definitely have to be free movement or the lack of artificially constraining starlanes. Chris outlined some very good points in support of free movement, all of which I agree with but, those are not the biggest issue I have with Starlanes. Its true that starlanes add strategy to the game. The problem is that they add LAND-based strategy, roads, choke points, mountains (impassable areas) which force you to use the type of land-based strategic thinking you would employ in a ground combat wargame, flanking, holding choke points....etc. The problem is that I don't want to be thinking like that in a space strategy game, it blows my immersion right out of the proverbial water. And we're not talking complex strategy here, but something about as in-depth as a game of RISK, leading to all the dumbed-down ultra-simplistic defense issues that Chris outlined so well in his post. Starlanes add land-based strategy and simultaneously subtract all the far more complex fluid defensive and offensive strategies that existed with free movement. In short if I want to be challenged by land-based strategic thinking then I'll happily play Civ, or any one of a zillion wargames. But when I'm pretending to be a space admiral in a space empire, I want my strategic decisions to be based around the free and open environment of space, not the roads and mountains of land. Once again MOO 2 did it right.
And your reason for disliking starlanes is exactly my reason for liking them it seems ahah. What if however the narrative itself dictates that there must be starlanes? In a universe where FTL is only possible through the travel of gigantic gates connecting systems to one another, a remnant of an ancient spacefaring race? Surely then the immersion would not be blown away?
Well, lets say you're the game designer. As game designer you get to decide the logic of your FTL system. It can be anything, Jump drives, Warp travel, starlanes, pink unicorns.......literally anything. About all I can say is that if your FTL system results in my space game being forcibly transformed into a land-based strategy game with all the depth and complexity of RISK then I really wouldn't be very interested in playing it. At all. It's simply not what I signed up for. I buy space strategy games to be challenged by the type of strategic thinking a space environment would logically mandate not a land environment. I have an uncountable number of wargames to scratch my ground strategy itch if that's what I want. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your preference, its just not one I share and therefore explains why I gravitate towards games like MOO 2 rather than say Endless Space. Actually that's not 100% true, I have bought starlane-based games before but the rest of the game has to be absolutely magnificent to compensate for the massive drag-factor.
Until the enemy develops a wormhole generator, then the next thing you know you've got a fleet hanging over your planet
Well then that is fun and can be included in a game that doesn't feature starlanes as the primary mode of Travel. In SEV by the time the enemy can research this, you will only find the enemy in the history books or one of my intergalactic zoos.
Well that's why I like Stellaris. It offers choice with 3 different methods of travels: - Warp. Your fleets got a range they can jump to any system in that from the border of a system. Simple. - Hyperlane. Same as Starlanes. You go to the border of a system and you can jump to any linked system. - Wormhole.You build stations. Massive range. Ships can travel anywhere in this range from the station. Ship must travel back to the station (warping to it) in order to travel to another system. Moreover you can unlock new ways of travel as you play the game but they have a risk (I won't spoil). You can also choose only one method of travel to be used by EVERYONE at the start of the game. It won't prevent them from discovering new ways of travel though. I stand my ground: choice is the best tool you can offer your players. Yet I know PSS is here to create a heir for MoO and as such open space warp travel is here to stay of course.
