GAME ATMOSPHERE (ver 1.1) hosted by Dominique

[Dominique]

Since this thread enjoys having so many postings within just a few days, I felt it would be quite good to do a first summary and start a new issue of the thread.

For an introduction on what this thread is about, please see
apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000076.html

I use a "traffic light system" to indicate

things that are supported by MANY people
things that are wished for
things to avoid in any case


Ideas and proposals up to now:

- "sloppy" language can destroy atmosphere (e.g. "nukes" instead of "nuclear missiles") (EnochF)

- deemphasize the winning of the game, i.e. make "endless" play possible and reward achievements, not single actions (i.e. a bustling civilization should be of the same worth as a flight to AC). (NotLikeTea)

The game should be FAST since even the cutest graphics utterly destroy the whole game atmosphere when they make the game slow to load / to play. Most people could accept less advanced graphics or non-animated units if the gameplay would be as swift as in CIV2.

Sounds should be implemented, especially in the city view, to indicate the overall atmosphere and / or special events in the city view (but be careful NOT to overdo the sounds as they gan become irritating). (EnochF)

BRING BACK THE HIGH COUNCIL!

Give us maps where we can have a decent look at our empire (like old historic maps) (Asgeir)

Call the things names! Implement a generic dictionary from which the names of places, rivers, mountain ranges etc. are generated to giv the game world a realistic touch.

Personalize the game! If I play an oriental civ, I want this culture be reflected as often as possible - in names, in the city graphics, in different advisors, but even in the interface and the background music!

Give us the old CIV1 newspaper again - we don't want any sterile message boxes, but some personalized way of getting information. (Atahualpa)

Computer-generated maps should look "like in the real world" with continents and large oceans (NotLikeTea)

The unitts and citizens should reflect in the graphics which civ they belong to. (Depp)

PLEASE give us movies which really have an atmosphere. More or less ALL people agree that the wonder movies in CIV2 are unmatched so far!

Try to use credible numbers for population and timescale. (NotLikeTea)

Please implement a replay option like in CIV1! (Dominique, NotLikeTea)

Let us give individual names to certain units. (Diodorus Sicilus)


Hope I summarized correctly and without leaving a major idea behind.



[This message has been edited by Dominique (edited May 26, 1999).]

[Ecce Homo]

Newspapers: Yes, but they look anachronistic during most of the game. Maybe they could alter appearance as your civ evolves:

Ancient - clay tablets with cuneiform type.
Medieval - rough paper with blackletter type.
Industrial - ordinary newspaper.
Information age - web-browser.

Informal language: I agree with EnochF: I feel more like a great ruler when I use Nuclear Missiles than when I play with "nukes". Why did you make that one red?

Definitely support the idea that graphics are less important than game play and if there has to be a trade off, it should be for lesser graphics for better gameplay (this is one area where CTP went badly wrong).

Reviews can be very misleading on this - some of them rave about the graphics (and the music) but that's because they're only playing the game for a short period before writing their review (it also sometimes indicates the reviewer is not a regular "God Gamer"). For those who play a game week in, week out, even the best graphics become "so what". What you need are graphics that don't intrude and are attractive (over the long haul) but easy on the eyes (for those long hours crouched in front of the screen). I mean, I saw a review of CTP which raved about the fact that the sprites threw shadows. Who cares! How much wasted work went into that?

Also, the intro videos for games are of interest for about 10 seconds. How much space/game development time/money are they taking up? I didn't even see the opening sequence for Civ II until about six months after I started playing it. I've probably only seen it that once in two or more years of playing the game. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Also, keep the commentaries in the dip interface etc. as dry and factual as possible. The cornball lines and little jokes really wear after your 100th game and the American sense of humour and sensibility doesn't travel well (i.e. what gets them rolling in the aisles at Firaxis may be cringing stuff in Germany, Australia and Japan).

P.S. really like your summary and the traffic lights system Dominique.

[This message has been edited by Alexander's Horse (edited May 26, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Alexander's Horse (edited May 26, 1999).]

Unfortunetly, the majority of people in this world look for cool graphics, animations and movies.

And I know where your coming from aswell, you want a political, battle planning, economics type of game, and basic graphics.

I am SURE there are games which focus on just those things.
But Civilization is not just any game, I've said this before! Again and again! It is one of the worlds best games, probably THE best ever created. And to keep it that way, It has to be enhanced in all the area's in the game, not just a few, just a few won't allow Civilization live up to its standards.

I know, that the diplomatic, economic, battle planning are the most important in being a leader.
I noticed CtP failed in this area. CtP seems to focus on a child or teenages point of view. Which was clearly the wrong way to go.
This is not a childs game, ITS CHESS MADE BETTER!

There is no excuse on making the games graphics look better. You don't need 16 or 32 bit graphics to make things look cool and run smooth. It just depends on how you use and create them.

Anyway, I am being totally ignored. So I'll be back maybe when the game is released.
And I am never going to trust Activision again. Stuff em!

[Dominique]

Hey, Icedan,

why do you think no one listens to you?

But I think I can settle this arising argument here. Fact is that most "addicted" players don't care too much for how cute the graphics are... but... in order to GET many people so far as to be addicted, to d"draw them into the game", there has to be some eycandy, really.

And as you can see from quite a lot of posts: There are those gfx gimmicks that are really LOVED by many people (like the High Council).

But to make my personal point of view clear: I do NOT think that "perfect" graphics add to a game's atmosphere. Not at all. But CAREFULLY MADE graphics do. Graphics in which you can see the thought - and the love - of the designer.

Honetsly, some weeks ago I played Empire deLuxe for 3 days - for those who don't know: A strategy game back from '94 with 16-color gfx. And I enjoyed it!

But, frankly, I wouldn't touch a game that comes out with that kind of graphics TODAY

As I see it, graphics must be done well - but "well" in this case (CIV) means: In such a way that they blend into the game and aren't just for the sake of "cool graphics"... and, of course, they mustn't slow down the game.

Lastly, concerning CtP: I don't really think people would complain about CtP's (admittedly cool) game graphics if the game itself would be better / more atmospheric / more balanced. As it is, people complain about the obvious stress on eyecandy on behalf of the actual game, something which NO ONE of us wants CIV3 to show.


Alexander's Horse:

Thx for the compliments
But I have to disagree with you in one point: The intro movie. For me, it's the same with all games: I watch the intro and think "So you wanna really show how cool you are and how great this game is, yeah? Well, let's see..." After having played the game for a while, I decide:

Either it's "Well, nice try, but the best of this game was the intro, so what?" or
"Yes, THAT's a game!"
And in case of the latter, I actually enjoy watching the intro again, now being able to identify with it. Then (and ONLY then) the intro becomes an important part of the overall atmosphere.

Hm... what you said about the little jokes... IMHO these really make a game come to life, if done well. As I could see from many posts here, most loved the High Council. Some remembered the newspaper headlines from CIV1 (come on, how many of such tiny details do you remember from other games?). Depends on what kind of joke it is - certainly some odd punchline is less funny after the 100th game than this evil "For the mother country" the spy in CtP utters (which is - astonishingly - even brilliantly translated into german!). The latter one makes me chuckle again and again


[This message has been edited by Dominique (edited May 26, 1999).]

[NotLikeTea]

Speaking of intro movies...

The "movie" for CivI was very nice (in the beginning, the world was without form, and void), but after multiple viewings, I still don't get the CivII movie (lots of spinning clocks).. no real relation to the game...

[monolith94]

My complaints about the introductory movies are - why do you have to watch the EVERY SINGLE TIME!!! I mean, sure it's nice once or twice, but for the 500th? In civ1, a big complaint of mine was that you had to wait so long for it to finish.

[wheathin]

COLOR COLOR COLOR!

More than two or three, at least. Easily the worst turn off for SMAC for me was the downer feeling I got playing it. I much prefer the bright feel of Civ1,2 and CtP.

Of course, this needs to be done carefully. Ctp uses enough different colors in enough different places that the players' personal motifs get lost: few colors show up on the Radar Map, the unit flags, the City Name boxes, *and* the diplomacy screens...
... but this was never a prob in Civ2, so I have faith that Sid and BR can find a solution.

Gfx related: make sure that tiles and images that are going to overlap make sense when they do so.

Regarding replay: a must have. But do more: make it more of a history (or as a separate but similar funciton) that can be reviewed at any time. If map features are named, little blurbs can be written that add much more feel to the game. Examples:
"1200 B.C - 950B.C.: {civ name} troops cross the {rivername} into {enemy civ} and destroy a {enemy civ} army."

"45-72AD: First {civname}-{enemy civ} War."

"650AD-704AD: Settlement in the {map feature name} area results in the displacement of the local population."

"1216AD-1244Ad: 22 Years War"

"1715AD-1731AD: {civname} completes its conquest of the {civname}. The last defenders are obliterated at the Battle of {city name or nearby map feature}."

wheathin

PS stupid HTML won't recognize angled brackets

[This message has been edited by wheathin (edited May 27, 1999).]

[Atahualpa]

Ctp has the best intro! (dont know about smac, but it cant be better than ctp).
When I first saw the Ctp intro as trailer I wanted to have the game! This intro is awesome awesome awesome.

Ata

[Monkey]

Just an idea that can maybe boost CTP's atmosphere score. Why don't we have different announcer voices for each different age or different govt. for example we could start with that woman's voice at the start and by the time we reached the end the voice has turned into a robot's voice to symbolize your technological advance...

or how about different voices and messages for each government? for example monarchy can have a maybe saying "Building completed your majesty"...and maybe technocracy can say something in a robotic voice

....well i 'll post this in the civ3 forum as well just in case activision decides not to read this

ps replace all occurences of CTP with civ3

[Imran Siddiqui]

Personalize...even in the interface

You are kidding me right? The only difference that the Chinese can have with the English in interface is marginal at best. So you wish Firaxis to be bogged down in something of marginal value? I think not!

More or less ALL people agree that the wonder movies in CIV2 are unmatched so far!

Not so. As I have said, SMAC matches and exceeds (by a long shot) the Civ2 movies! Just look at the Nano-Factory or Virtual World movies, people!

Please implement a replay option like in CIV1!

Once again look at SMAC. It has a replay at the end of it.


------------------
Imran Siddiqui
Moderator SG Forums - www.sidgames.com/forums/ ,

"Sir, I would rather be right than be President."

-Henry Clay

[monolith94]

Blah blah blah blah blah blah SMAC blah blah blah better blah blah blah. . . And it just goes on and on.
Imran: The way I want the interface to be personalized is that if it's an asian country, it has an asian look to it, nothing really changes.
And civ2 movies are better :P

[EnochF]

The Civ I Intro Movie:

Okay, admit it. How many of you reprogrammed the text to say: "In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move..."

Icedan: agree with what you say. All I'm saying is if the designers have to choose between enhanced graphics and enhanced gameplay, I want them to go for the latter. I'm not saying the graphics should be crappy but on the other hand Gary Grigsby (we're not worthy) put out some titles that have very basic graphics but excellent gameplay and they have stood the test of time (War in Russia, War in the Pacific).

Dominique: Always a good idea to suck up to the administrator...I'm not against intro's etc. per se. My concern is development time and disc space etc. One idea... Why don't they put stuff like that on the internet as an optional download? After all, intro movies aren't much different to movie "trailers" and when you go to see the movies, you don't see the trailer. Like Red Alert (?) had a great one.

I also liked the council etc. especially in anarchy, "babble babble, knew this would happen"..., and think they should bring back the woman in Civ II (I only think I'm doing well if she says so) and the military adviser who looked like Norman Schwarzkopf in Civ I. Also, the videos for wonders always make me think I should be using my time better then playing computer games.

My point on humour is that it doesn't travel well. I'm not American and I generally only find Americans funny when they are not trying to be (no offense). For example, what would be funny in my culture would be if when you were doing really badly in war the military advisor came out and said that line from Civ I, "Your doing great general, and we've got you to thank for it". But whilst I might get off on that every time, most of he world would be complaining that the advisers were crap and had a bug. Another example, in my job a lot of people do translation of conversations etc. When say an English speaker tells a joke to say a Japanese, a good translator tells a different joke to get the desired effect. So jokes and cornball comments in the text boxes...I think not.

[This message has been edited by Alexander's Horse (edited May 28, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Alexander's Horse (edited May 28, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Alexander's Horse (edited May 28, 1999).]

[Atahualpa]

Civ2 Wonders good? I only like 2: Leo's Workshop and the Women's suffrage. I copied them to HD! The rest didnt interest me after I saw them once.

My opinion (so dont flame me on that)
Ata

[Depp]

Civ 2 movies are very nice, the ancient ones, the others suck

SMAC movies all suck since none is interested in thing you don´t even know what they are. And the things someone says when you discover something often has nothing to do with what you discovered.... blah

CTP movies are very uneven. Some movies like stonehedge is really cool, but they often have to much a artificial look to them

[Imran Siddiqui]

CTP movies that were posted on Apolyton all SUCKED (in a way never known to Civ)

Civ 2 movies were good (some)

SMAC movies were excellent (All of them!)

And monolith, how do you personalize the interface for an Asian nation? Look at the SMAC interface (since they probably will use that that). Now tell me how you can have a distinction between European and Asian races on that?

------------------
Imran Siddiqui
Moderator SG Forums - www.sidgames.com/forums/ ,

"Sir, I would rather be right than be President."

-Henry Clay

[NotLikeTea]

The distinction is simple. The Asian interface would look more asian. Duh. ;-)

Seriously, I don't like the idea of customized interfaces either.. make them a gif or pck or whatever, and let us edit them ourselves, if we want, but they shouldn't spend time making dozens of them for all the different civs.

As to movies, I was indifferent to the CivII movies (though I love the Leonardo music), and while some of the SMAC movies were good, others were too much just swirly colours (Xenoempathy, for example)

Im a Inteface Designer, and SMACS interface is absolutely shocking. It's the main reason I don't play the game.

So far, The best interface, is the main bar down the bottom (NOT COVERING HALF THE SCREEN)

It would be nice to have an option to see the main bar at the bottom drop off out of the screen when the mouse is not over it.
Like an Auto-Hide. (Can be annoying tho, thats why it should be made an option.)

The reason the main bar has to go down the bottom, is because the eye can rest down the bottom, rather than look up at the top - it can get quite stressing. And if you notice, your cursor mostly hangs around the bottom of your screen. You do that yourself, naturally.

Don't make the bar complicated!!! Make it simple, Extremely! The more complicated you make an image look, the less the eye can focus on it. Which results in annoyance, poor gameplay, etc. Surely Firaxis know this by now.

[Atahualpa]

The reason the main bar has to go down the bottom, is because the eye can rest down the bottom, rather than look up at the top - it can get quite stressing. And if you notice, your cursor mostly hangs around the bottom of your screen. You do that yourself, naturally.

Wow, quite interesting! I never thought of that.

My opinion is that the interface has to be much nicer. Smacs interface was much to steril (but so was the planet). Ctp's interface is better (for a worldhistoryTBS game), its colors are lighter and friendlier and the buttons look nicer.

Personalized Interace? If it is well made, why not (I would find it also interesting if I (European) can play with the Asian interface).

ATa

[Atahualpa]

Wouldnt it also add to atmosphere, when the interface changes with the government, or maybe in a religious government the units would report like: "For God and the Pope!" or something similar, while the Units under a fascist gov would report like: "For our Führer!". It would give you more the feeling of having a different government.

ATa

[Ladonna of Thar]

Okay, well, certainly no one has got the illusion that all of us like exactly the same things - but the essential thing for this forum is to find out what most of us would like to see in CIV3 - so , Imran, maybe you prefer SMAC wonder videos, but most of us seemingly don't.

Atahulapha (hallöchen ), the fact alone that you copied even two of those videos says much - how many games are there with which you did that?

About the interface: It's relatively simple (and has a GREAT effect on game atmosphere) to create fitting interface templates for each culture (maybe not for every single civ). For a nice example look at the Age of Empires interface. But of course we have to keep the feasability of such a thing in mind: While adjusted interfaces would be nice as well for cultures as for epochs, certainly both can't be done at the same time (erm... 20 civs multiplied by 5 epochs = 100 interface styles???).

Personally, I'd prefer an interface influenced by my culture / cive since it improves the identification factor (which isn't enhanced by epoch-dependent graphics, cute as the might be), the ideal being a editable interface for those hardcore gamers amongst us.

Talking about feasabilty: Alexander's Horse, maybe you haven't quite the right idea of how much time (money!) goes into videos/intros. They certainly wouldn't do such a thing just for some freaks who can download the videos optonally - no way.
Belive me, those videos cost really large sums, so they are a fix part - or they aren't at all

Lastly, about the jokes: Good translation is the key, and this is one of (IMHO very few) examples where the people at Activision did an excellent job with CtP. But in my view humor is a must so as to not let the player have too much of the impression of doing hard work (a feeling I can't help having when I play CtP). As the positive feedback on the High Council clearly demonstrates, at least ONE common line of humor is here, hm?

[SnowFire]

Second votes for the replay, except I want a much much better replay than what we had in SMAC.

I also second the newspaper.

I also agree with most of what Imran says. The SMAC movies were good- they coulda been better, but they were definitely at least good. Also "Personalize...even in the interface" just isn't possible for a Civ game. I want personalization as much as you, but in the interface? Perhaps as an option to let zealous home-programmers do themselves, and that way we'll easily have 30 different interfaces to choose from.

However, I disagree with "de-emphasizing" winning the game. You're free to play to whatever you want to afterwards. Me, I prefer a set goal, like "Complete the map as fast as possible" like in HOMM II. I think 4 or 5 set goals as fast as possible, like in SMAC, was and still is just fine.

[NotLikeTea]

By de-emphasis of winning, I don't mean making winning less important.

In Civ, winning is everything. If you do not conquer the world, or launch a ship, the game is essentially a failure.

I'd like it if playing the game with a good civilization is a victory in itself. I want to do what is best for my people, and be rewarded for this. Would add to realism, since this is the goal of most leaders. No dictator says "I'm going to conquer the world, because I want more points!" Instead, they attack for resources, wealth, pride, etc... These should be goals, not only the quest for more points...

[SnowFire]

No dictator says "I'm going to conquer the world, because I want more points!"

Ah, but they do.

Instead, they attack for resources, wealth, pride, etc.

Pride, exactly. That's what the points are for. "Me, as dictator, can now stomp my boot into the human race-forever." Or "Under my leadership, humanity entered the stars." The resources and wealth are only incidental and done because they are needed to achieve the main goal that drives leaders to succeed. Which, for us, is points.

Speaking of which, is this a good thread to discuss the scoring system in? Or is there another?

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by SnowFire (edited June 01, 1999).]</font>

[NotLikeTea]

Well, yes and no.

When I play to win, I don't feel like I'm making an impact into history forever. I feel like I'm playing a game to win.

It's not a matter of winning conditions, per se, but a matter of atmosphere. CivI did conquest well, and felt satisfying, but CivII felt a little bland.

As to scoring, I'd like to see a "Winning and Losing" thread...

Laddonna of Thar: On intro videos, the fact that they cost a lot of money is precisely why I suggest they be cut. I fall firmly into to the gameplay over graphics camp. But I take your point that the download idea is probably not the answer.

On American jokes, how do you translate them for English speakers? The English speaking world is in itself very diverse. If anything, I think Americans are in fact the odd ones out where humour is concerned. I suppose in the end it doesn't really matter, as long as the commentaries aren't annoyingly parochial or idiomatic (i.e. riddled with Americanisms).

[Eggman]

Megadittos on the "History of the World Replay". To see the wars and key discoveries and conquests and population growth and government changes and all that Jazz would be a blast. Combine that with map replay (POLITICAL MAP!) and I will love Firaxis forever.

And humor can be a subjective thing, even inside the same culture. We Americans get exposed to about every type of humor imaginable because of all the various cultures in our country. Some jokes carry from culture to culture and some don't. Example: English comedy: Monty Python is considered hilarious in the US. Fawlty Towers and Red Dwarf are liked by some but most find them too dry (i.e. too serious).

Eggman

I'll keep my sweeping generalisations to myself in future but what your saying really reinforces my point on humour. Its the "cornball" humour that turns me off - but that's just me. I like Red Dwarf, Faulty Towers, Absolutely Fabulous, lots of people don't. On the other hand, I watch Dave Letterman and try to work out why everyone is laughing - I imagine there are people here who get it and in the U.S. who don't. His jokes are like "Mad" magazine jokes.

Ever seen what passes for funny in Germany? No wonder they launched two world wars......oops there I go again...."Don't mention the war".

[Dominique]

Alexander's Horse,

I'm afraid you couldn't be more wrong with what you say about german humor... I *am* german and e.g. LOVE the humor of Douglas Adams (the Brits seem to be a bit more able as far as sophisticated humor is concerned, as opposed to American... erm... "humor" )

And, since you mentioned it: Wasn't it history's biggest (and worst) joke to have this clown as a "Führer"? So, we really know a good laugh... dead seriously