New Dev Diary is up...

Rantz · October 24, 2002, 14:10

over at gamespy. Combat shots as well.

http://www.gamespy.com/devdiary/october02/moo311/

Atragon · October 24, 2002, 15:47

The last combat shot looks ok.

In my opinion, when zoomed in, the combat looks like crap.

But zoomed out, with large numbers of ships, it looks half-decent...I'd really love a 3d combat engine in an expansion pack.

Of course, all those ships look identical, please tell me that isn't the case?

Edit: Cleaned up sentence structure.

Spaced Cowboy · October 24, 2002, 18:27

Very nice Rantz!

Side note:
Star generals prefer combat from a distance.
Fighter pilots like the close-ups.

moomin · October 24, 2002, 19:13

I can't shake the impression that combat should either have been in 2D or that accelerated graphics should have been supported from scratch. Can't even recall last time a 3D game without was released...

wervdon · October 24, 2002, 19:33

I just hope that you have a large amount of control over combat, and don't just mostly watch it play out and give very little input.

Mahdimael · October 24, 2002, 19:34

The ships look ok. They're not going to beat out anything 3d-accelerated, of course, but I've seen worse.

One thing, however- they are much too dark. The colors should be brighter, like the weapon fire. Also, I think the distant view is too cluttered, especially with all those explosions. The ships also look very very similar- perhaps they should have different colors or a colored marking ala most RTS games(They all appear to be a dark tan)

If anything, there should be an option to turn off all the graphical chaff (explosions) so we can see clearly what's shooting at/hitting what.

It seems to me that you take one of two approaches to graphics:

A. Clean 2d graphics
B. Visually stimulating 3d graphics

I think the game is trying to accomplish both, but it's only partially succeeding.

vmxa1 · October 24, 2002, 19:45

Quote:

Originally posted by wervdon
I just hope that you have a large amount of control over combat, and don't just mostly watch it play out and give very little input.

Hear Hear. I do not care for real time combat if it means I can not really do much more than start it.

danminster · October 24, 2002, 20:38

Quote:

Originally posted by wervdon
I just hope that you have a large amount of control over combat, and don't just mostly watch it play out and give very little input.

I agree with both vmxa1 and wervdon. I believe that this was one of the main problems with RftS. You basically started the combat and watched it go w/o any real control by the player.

I also hope that the option for greater control exists in MOO3, since this was one of the strengths of the previous games in this series.

SeanV · October 24, 2002, 21:45

Mahdimael

I think the reason that all of the ships look alike in that picture is that they all are Melkar ships. After all can't there be more than one empire per race in this game? That shot is just a picture of the bloody robots dealing with a minor internal disagreement.

Cool!

Straybow · October 24, 2002, 23:00

When I tried R4TS I didn't like the combat engine because it was too stilted. Ships or formations couldn't manuever independently, and the player input was schlock. Combat devolved into a spruced up version of rock-paper-scissors.

Being able to µmg the whole battle isn't necessary at all. Needing to µmg the whole battle is a drawback rather than an advantage.

vmxa1 · October 24, 2002, 23:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Straybow
Being able to µmg the whole battle isn't necessary at all. Needing to µmg the whole battle is a drawback rather than an advantage.

I am not in total disagreement, but if you can not make an impact with some better tactics (real microMG), then we do not need to even have combat. I mean it sounds good to be able to have the game fight well, but if I can not make any impact other than sending a better fleet than them or a smarter formation, yuck.
Something like I do all the stuff until I am sure I can not suffer any damage and I can auto resolve and the combat in Space Empires IV, where if you attack planetary defences you have to do every move and every unit or a no lose win turns into all ships lost. The battles were very painful in SEIV as the formation moves stunk and ships would do crazy things like all move when the leader moved and not go to a useful spot This made a battle take forever, just to move into target range.

playshogi · October 24, 2002, 23:19

I know from the earlier data dumps that 1) you can't control individual ships and 2) you can only give general orders to task forces therefore combat will play out similar to the Stars! model.

vmxa1 · October 24, 2002, 23:28

Yeah the Stars combat was just a non input affair. Ships engage and you see the results. SEIV was ok once the units were actually fighting. Moo/Moo2 combat was good because it took no time to get into action and you could have an impact. Moo2 the players tactical skills were not the level as Moo. In Moo you could manage to win a battle against better/bigger fleets with tactics, in Moo2 you really could only make an impact on the edges. By that I mean you had an impact, but often only a small one. It would depend on the fleets. Missiles with fast racks could be used to a big effect, but not so much with beams.

Barshy · October 25, 2002, 13:13

Maybe you should copy and paste it on your site? The gamespy link is down.

Mahdimael · October 25, 2002, 15:21

Ah, roger that. That would make sense

It would really suck if we couldn't control combat directly.

Quote:

Originally posted by SeanV
Mahdimael

I think the reason that all of the ships look alike in that picture is that they all are Melkar ships. After all can't there be more than one empire per race in this game? That shot is just a picture of the bloody robots dealing with a minor internal disagreement.

Cool!

Rantz · October 25, 2002, 16:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Barshy
Maybe you should copy and paste it on your site? The gamespy link is down.

the article has been disabled as it wasn't supposed to go live until Sunday and it was discovered by intrepid fans poking about

sorry about that, it'll be back on Sunday.

and RE: combat, there is plenty to control, you are *not* just sitting back and watching it unless you choose to let the AI run it.

Mahdimael · October 25, 2002, 16:14

I take it intrepid=nosy

Rantz, you make all my worries disappear like sand in the wind. Thanks for keeping us all updated.

Quote:

Originally posted by Rantz

the article has been disabled as it wasn't supposed to go live until Sunday and it was discovered by intrepid fans poking about

sorry about that, it'll be back on Sunday.

and RE: combat, there is plenty to control, you are *not* just sitting back and watching it unless you choose to let the AI run it.

Barshy · October 25, 2002, 16:16

Is the MOO3 combat going to be like Medieval: Total War real time combat, pace wise?

The Rusty Gamer · October 26, 2002, 21:50

As we went through the assessment editing, adjusting and rework of the design in the beginning of the year, we shut up about what was going on. The truth being that we didn't want to say, "We're doing this," and then test it and find that it didn't solve the problem, so we'd have to say, "Sorry, that didn't work, we're now doing this." We wanted to get everything down to proven brass tacks before we started giving out details, so we could say, "This is going to be what you should expect in the game." The result was that we were too quiet for a while, and since nature abhors a vacuum, conspiracy theories ran amok.

So now perhaps we can understand how wise Firaxis has been when it comes to being quiet about Civ 3 changes.

Rantz · October 30, 2002, 00:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Barshy
Is the MOO3 combat going to be like Medieval: Total War real time combat, pace wise?

I haven't played medieval, but I have played shogun, and the pace is similar to that.

Sarxis · October 30, 2002, 00:50

Could they possibly squeeze any more ads into Gamespy?

mmurray821 · October 30, 2002, 10:51

Rantz,

Definately try Medieval: Total War when you get a moment (after MOO3 goes gold). It is MUCH improved over shogun. Watching the walls of a castle come down one piece at a time is worth the price of the game! (Yes, I am a sadist. How could you tell?)

Rantz · October 30, 2002, 13:09

I've been wanting to check out Med:TW, as well as a slew of other games like AoM, but time (obviously) simply hasn't been there.

I'm thinking after we ship I'm going to take a week off and do nothing but stay home and play games to catch up.

Mongoose · November 5, 2002, 15:27

Sorry, Rantz, but that's nuts! If I were you, I would grab some honey and go play in the sun in the Caribean or Cancun or some such place for a week or so.

Rantz · November 5, 2002, 16:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Mongoose
Sorry, Rantz, but that's nuts! If I were you, I would grab some honey and go play in the sun in the Caribean or Cancun or some such place for a week or so.

I'd love for the wife and I to saddle up, go away to a tropical clime for a week or three, but with two other projects going alpha in january and 4 children age four and under, that is unlikely to happen for a while.

ah well, I'll console myself with some gaming mayhem

mmurray821 · November 5, 2002, 17:40

Sounds good Rantz, but if you play MTW, always, always remember to pillage BEFORE you burn.

campfreddie · November 6, 2002, 07:04

>>but with two other projects going alpha in january

What else are you working on Rantz?

Or is it top secret?

Rantz · November 6, 2002, 14:59

Quote:

Originally posted by campfreddie
>>but with two other projects going alpha in january

What else are you working on Rantz?

Or is it top secret?

We're also working on a high-end company comand simulator for the US army, that allows commanders to train for commanding in assymteric incursions.

200-300 men moving around on your orders, plus OpFor, plus Civilians. Base spec is a 2 Ghz PIV and a Gig of ram with a GeForce 4.

It's a lot of fun, and we, as part of our deal with the army, actually own everything and can sell it as a retail piece of software after the project is complete (minus the security-level stuff) Hopefully, we'll find a smaller publisher that would be interested in bringing it to the public, since it is really a niche product. military enthusiasts and wargamers with really high end comp specs...

There's another project that hasn't been officially announced yet, and then we have the next round of projects that we're in the midst of negotiating.

busy busy busy...

Ozymandous · November 21, 2002, 17:17

Better busy than not.

The military simulator sounds really good, too bad I don't have a PC that would run it, but by the time it's on the market (assuming it makes it) a few years from now I probably would have upgraded.

campfreddie · November 22, 2002, 08:13

Sound interesting. Army backing should make it nice and realistic, even once you've removed the 'security-level' CIA black helicopters and GM modified alien greys.

I hope I have a half decent computer by the time that gets released. I bet it'll make a change for people to complain about too high system requirements rather than too low ones

When can we expect an announcement on the other project? It's not MOM2 is it? (probably not, since Age of Wonder 2 is such a blatant rip-off of MOM...)