SMAC popularity??

[Bruce205]

Hello Folks,

Any thoughts on why SMAC has lost its appeal?? As an example it was given a 98% score in PC Gamer and then not even listed in their Top 50 games of all time!!
I have just started playing the game and its really neat so far. I suppose I just wish SMAC had a bigger following.
Thanks

[Flubber]

While it apparently not a top seller, it remains popular with a core group of followers. As for explanations for its lack of mass popularity, I'm not sure, but here are some possibilities

1. Its sci-fi and therefore not as appealing or as intuitive to those that like the "history" of the Civ games-- Sci fi often appeals to younger people who tend more to real time strat and shooter games

2. The graphics are dark and not as appealing ( I like 'em)

3. Smac is more complex and therefore harder in some ways than CIV2--

4. The game was quite buggy to start with the dreaded terranx crashes among others-- could have turned some people off

5. I don't recall this but could there have been other popular games released at the same time that competed for gaming bucks



Just some speculation . . . .

As for failing to crack a Top 50 . . . as much as I like this game it should not be considered top anything while there are so many confirmed bugs that there seems to be no intention to fix.


I love the game and while I am toying with Civ3, I yhink that Smax is the one I will come back to (bugs and all)..

[Adalbertus]

A difficult question to be answered in a forum of fans ...
I knew of the existence of SMAC about two or three years before I bought it. And I (as more historically oriented) was doubting whether I would like it, and I bought it mainly due to utter disappointment of CTPII (A crash which wiped out my harddisk while installing FixMod. I will NEVER forget that ).
And I like SMAC despite the futuristic setting. I was simply enthusiastic about the way a civ game - which normally just means to build an empire and shoot at your opponents - evolved a sort of story through the Interludes, which really makes sense. And this sort of atmosphere to play in is so much more important for me than a strong AI (I liked playing SimCity, actually, which is a "nihilistic" game in that its only goal is to play and not to win). I also found that in CivII/CTPII I usually called the opponents by their group name, in SMAC it is the leader. IMHO a good sign that they achieved a personalization.
As for the appeal, I think there is a strong problem with successors of "standard setting" games. Somehow, most customers seem to expect to get the same game as previously, except for the enhancements they wanted. Which is impossible, of course, to meet, except for one person. This might also be one of the reasons of the current disappointment with CivIII (I don't want to talk about bug and things, I don't have CivIII and probably won't for the next year).

[Method]

much as i like SMAC, i would MUCH rather play Civ III. what i mean is i would like to play a game like SMAC on earth without red land and dark blue ocean but green or yellow land and light blue ocean. if Civ III had interesting and not all "clone" civs, unit workshops, social engineering, and all the other things that make SMAC so much better that "boring Civ" i would buy it rather than SMAC on an alien world in the future. i really like history more than science fiction but SMAC is just so much better than CIV

[Googlie]

Just as a point of interest, when I was loading smac/x and the upgrades on to a new harddrive, I saw that from the Firaxis site, smac patch 4.0 had been downloaded 78,000 times and smax patch v 2.0 had been downloaded 38,000 times.

Does this mean that less than 1 in 2 smac players get smax? Or that many are playing smax without the v 2.0 patch?

G.

[Basilisk]

Well i can't speak for everyone but i didn't get SMAX cos i thought that Alpha Centauri was good enough, adn I couldn't really afford the extra $60 then. Regret it now when SMAX is nowhere to be found

[Vytae]

SMAC/SMAX Were both good games,got excellent ratings and are still popular long after they have even stopped production of the game. Thing is,it has a very steep learning curve and thus doesnt have the mass appeal of say,starcraft which takes 5 minutes to learn.

SMAX didnt have many copies made and was discontinued before SMAC was,thus not many people have it.

[Basilisk]

Originally posted by Flubber
while there are so many confirmed bugs that there seems to be no intention to fix.

anyone noticed that damn annoying bug where you can't cahnge your gender? Here i am playing Santiago, and everyone calling me 'Pact Sister', get's quite annoying. You can change your gender in the box where you can change your name, your factions name etc, but it always changes back!

[yavoon]

there are two huge reasons it doesn't sell in my mind.

1)its not historic, this is a huge selling point, even like non-historic things that just have swords and the like in em sell better than sci fi. as is evident by all the "ITS NOT REALISTIC ENUFF" posts about civ3. lotsa ppl play the civ series to recreate history. and they don't enjoy nething happening outside wut they can suspend disbelief about.

2)ITS TOO ****ING LONG. omg, I don't know what you expect in the sales department when to play a game takes 8-12 hours. yah they thot automation would help, but its too horrible to be useful. if smac games took 2-3 hours to complete a full game it'd sell easily 3x as much. its like making a god damn 5 hour movie, your way past ppl's attention span. and frankly, if smac wasn't such a good game, u'd be way past mine too. the game really is too damn long. also this incredible length really mutilates a lot of the motivation for MP for a large % of the population. I don't want an MP game to end 3 months later.

u know they say hamlet was never performed in its entirity in the renaissance because it was too damn long, it was always split up. perhaps these turn based strategy ppl should learn something from that.

smac could be a smaller game too, easily, look how many redundant buildings there are. fusion/quantum all the +50% mineral buildings. the weapons simply go up in #.

[dojoboy]

Hey, long time listener, first time caller.

I totally love SMAC/X. I started playing Civ II a few years ago. A year after starting I stumbled upon SMAC and then SMAX. I guess if I had to throw my two cents in, I wish the factions' leadership would croak and die on occasion. Who lives for three hundred years? Am I missing something in the storyline? Besides, it would be cool to manage a peaceful or not so peaceful exchange of power.

Every now and then I reload Civ II for a game but can't get through it. Back to SMAC/X.

After browsing all the threads, I see I've got a lot to do. I've yet to defeat the AIs in a SP game at the highest level, working on it now (one level away). Never have I played a MP game, wouldn't know where to start. How long do these games last? I picked up Vel's guide - Wow!

Never had an AI faction drop a PB on me either, only once was I worried about it occurring. I've downloaded some patches, but I'm playing on a Mac, not all of them work. Any ideas?

Civ III? Yea, I'm going for it in March '02 (Mac version). Curious about the new diplomatic options and culture component.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by yavoon
I don't want an MP game to end 3 months later.

LOL, yavoon. Most of us would be delighted if a PBEM ended in 3 months. I'm in three now that are over a year old, and still going strong !!

G.

[NorthSwordsman]

I was first introduced to the Civ concept when I got the SNES version of Civilization. I was hooked from the beginning. Then I found SMAC, and this forum, then SMAX when a friend who doesn't have time to play anymore found a copy for me just so we could play. The rest is history. I've been playing for ... I've forgotten how long now, over a year, certainly. It hasn't lost it's appeal to me. To me, it just "feels" comfortable. I've acquired CivNET, CivII, CivII:ToT and I just haven't been really impressed with them. I realize that SMAC builds on some of the elements of CivII, I can see that, but for me, Smac/X is the only TBE I've found worth my time playing, bugs and all. The bugs make it interesting, if frustrating once in awhile. .

Like Googlie, a good many of my PBEM games take months... and single player games have taken me over 20 hours to play when I want to take my time, 10 when I don't. I'm addicted to this game.

CivIII sounds truly interesting, but I will wait for a bit until it gets MP. For me, one of the truly intriguing things about smac/x is the interaction among people in the MP games. The game itself is interesting, but Multi-player adds a whole new dimension to learning about others. I've made some real close friends through MP games, and some mild enemies . All in all, it's been very entertaining for me. I have some RTS games like the Age of Empires quartet, but TBE is more my style. It gives me time to think... what do I wanna do next? Nuke Dierdre or Yang?

I know, I'm rambling. So? Just my 2 cents.

[Adalbertus]

dojoboy

Who lives for three hundred years? Am I missing something in the storyline?

Unfortunately, you do. The Longevity Treatment just ensures this prolonged life and pops up at several places in the game:
- The Longevity Vaccine SP
- The Interlude for the first self-bred Mindworm
- The second >pop< Interlude
and perhaps several other places.

As I said in my earlier post, it is the story - and its consistence - are one of the reasons why I like this game so much. This, and the personality not only of the leaders but also of Planet itself. I still remember that tense feeling of being unwelcome on Planet in the way I do (and have to) act. It is about the same as was - much less successfully - intended in the forgotten game Colonization (also Sid and Microprose, as Civ).
It is also a brilliant idea how the alien (pre-)sentient life is created; as a fungus and not simply as humanoids with greenish coloured skin, three big eyes and a strange mouth.
Then, it matters only little that I (as physicist) find some of the tech advances, and especially the accompanying texts, really ridiculous ...

[Ned]

I've played Civ, Civ II, SMAC and SMACx repeatedly and addictively. These are, IMHO, all great games, with SMACx being the best of them all.

I purchased, played, but never completed even one game of Colonization, Age of Empires, Homeworld, CTP II and Civ III.

Regardless of whether the latter games were challenging or not, by the time they entered the field, they were already surpassed by other games in the first set above. Thus, if you were playing Civ II, you would really be annoyed by Age of Empires, and I was.

Civ III may have some new features not seen before in the Civ series, but it lacks many of the innovations of SMAC and SMACx, particularly in the user interface. Thus, for many of us used to playing SMAC and SMACx, Civ III is a major disappointment.

But money talks in determining the top 50. Civ and Civ II will rank up there due to sales in the millions. But let us hope that someone, somewhere will take the SMACx game and give us a follow-on.

Ned

[Bruce205]

Boy oh Boy, thanks for all the replies to my question. I really appreciate the thoughtful posts.
I am a struggling newbie just getting my feet wet.
Thanks again

[Method]

Originally posted by dojoboy
Who lives for three hundred years.

the leaders in CIV do. and they only retire after 6000 years...

[Frankychan]

I think the genre now is those first person shooters. Maybe that's why AC's popularity has dropped somewhat.

I for one can't stand those shooter games...I get all sick and nauseated.

[Ned]

FChan, Re: First Person Shooters, have you tried Deus Ex? Now that, IMHO, is a great game. It is the "thinking man's" FPS. Ned

[MattyBoy]

This is a really good question, Bruce.

I prefer SMACX to CIV II, because I like:
- social engineering.
- different faction characteristics.
- obvious advances, like inefficiency/bureaucracry (for ICS), zones of control & build queues.
- design workshop.
- storyline (until it became routine and then I stopped noticing it).
- general look and feel / sound. That dispassionate "Drone Riots" kept me on the edge of my seat while I was learning to play.
- planet lifeforms that add so much more to the character of the game than do barbarians.

These last two points give the game an addictive edge that I never felt with civ II ( but did while I was first learning CIV I )


So, what turns people off SMAC?

Well, if everybody had given it a proper try, the worst change from CIV II to SMAC would have to be the supply crawlers. They are so powerful and the AI doesn't use them, so you know that you will eventually win (I only play SP) as long as you survive until Industrial Auto. Actually, I have banned myself from using supply anything now.

But, I think yavoon gave the real answer for SMAC's relative obscurity
(besides the fact that it was not called "CIV 3, Alpha Centauri")

1)its not historic, this is a huge selling point, even like non-historic things that just have swords and the like in em
sell better than sci fi. as is evident by all the "ITS NOT REALISTIC ENUFF" posts about civ3. lotsa ppl play the civ
series to recreate history. and they don't enjoy nething happening outside wut they can suspend disbelief about.

I am yearning for a true CIV game at the moment, because I have just been reading "Guns, Germs and Steel", which explains the history of the world since 11000 BC. When I hear how the Taiwanese invented triremes and began conquering island after island, it just makes me want to make some triremes myself...
...CIV 3 here we come.

[Evil Robot]

Originally posted by Ned
FChan, Re: First Person Shooters, have you tried Deus Ex? Now that, IMHO, is a great game. It is the "thinking man's" FPS. Ned

Yes, yes it is.

[Basilisk]

Originally posted by Evil Robot


Yes, yes it is.

Definately! If only that, (and CIV3 of course) would run on my machine...