The announcement of GalCiv III is amongst the best gaming news I've heard in years and long desired. The fact that Stardock is going 64bit and Dx10+ with it just makes me even more delighted. I'm looking forward to a world class and amazing gaming experience! (And it's about time devs started ditching the 32bit/Dx9 chains).
One thing that is repeatedly striking me as I read these forums is that GalCiv II is one of the top space 4X and so many GC3 suggestions seem to want to change major elements of a game that is already pretty damn near perfect. I'm actually hoping Stardock ignores a good 95% of the stuff being discussed here lately. I want GALCIV...not some weird abomination that is no longer galciv! And I trust Stardock to deliver an excellent game moreso than random armchair devs, modders, or random forum commenters. I'm sure Stardock reads feedback and incorporates some ideas - it's another reason they rock, but man, some of these threads seem to be in regards to different games or genres.
As a side note, I'd also rather see dev time focused on PC only (forget mac and Linux) and steam-only. People who want to cling to steam hate and/or who want to use PCs unsuitable for quality PC gaming can just do without (due to their own choosing). Nothing wrong with Mac or Linux, but if you want to enjoy the best of PC gaming, then obviously you should have a quality win/PC gaming rig. Expecting devs to bend over backwards to cater to extreme minorities is unreasonable.
I am very excited about Galciv 3! I was very pleased to hear the game will be 64-bit and using DX10. Give me a game that will push my PC hardware. I think the hardest part will be waiting for the game to come out since it is probably 1 - 2 years away still.
Recently I read an article about project managers protecting their programmers from the user community by isolating them. I wish I could find it again to share because it was very illuminating. User communities can be very nasty, and if a programmer who slaved over a program for years saw some of the community comments it could cause burnout and frustration. Seeing the game designers viewing and responding to posts just made me think of this.
At any rate, I'm a huge fan of the series and will definitely get the game when it comes out.
I gotta kinda in a way back that.
I don't wanna be playin' a perfect game and then have god-like Snathi pop up, laying waste to everything while shouting, "Die, consumer! Die!!!".
Could be worse! It could be peed off Paulos pounding your cities to dust! lol
Frogboy, am I glad you are still in charge of all things GalCiv. I remember you from the GC1 for OS2 beta days. Can you refresh my memory of when that was? I know it was before I retired. I kept all of the GC for OS2 games I had gotten for a long time. It was fun then, through the betas for the Windoze versions, and I expect it to be fun with GalCiv III.
I can tell everyone that I expect a lot of people will be disappointed with the level of the gaming in the Alpha test and through much of the Beta testing. That was the case with CGI and GCII, simply because of necessity. They were developed in stages, one stage on top of the previous. The earliest stages were rather bare bones, but they were needed to make the later stages possible. The real character of both games didn't shine through until ALL of the code was developed. I expect the same thing to happen with III. This is going to be FUN.
Sigh. Something I did messed up my post. I guess I am having trouble with the reverse color stuff. Sorry, but I hope to learn how to avoid that in the future.
Will someone please send my regards and congrats to Carielf?
Thanks.
If there are still going to be bonus tiles on planets, I have to say that it would be nice to be able to see them (and whether they have an appropriate improvement sited) without cycling through every single planet.
Thanks Brad, for providing us with some reassurance!
I know I would be. That is why I'm going to skip those even if I have the access due Elite pack.
Thanks to the OP for bringing up an important point. Thanks to devs and Brad for reassurance and understanding. This is great!
I found myself renaming planets based on their specialization because otherwise I couldn't tell which planets were which.
Research #1, Research #2 etc
This thread is exactly what I wanted to hear. The goal of a sequel should be to improve on the previous game, not replace it with something totally different.
I hope they can get the tiles named uniformly
this tile gives an approval bonus of X%
yet the rest of the game calls it morale
took me several play-throughs before I could determine if approval effected morale or influence
I'm guessing alpha stage is even more chaotic than Beta. I remember in the beta for FE, things changed a lot sometimes on a weekly basis. I don't think its so much a matter of spoilers as it is getting fans excited over a system in the game ... and then a few weeks later after testing, realizing it wasn't working and replacing it with something else entirely, then the folk excited over the system might get miffed.
Gets my vote ..... that saga was "How to Destroy an Icon 101".
Fortunately, Brad will not be so crazy ..... GalCiv is GalCiv, and I have every confidence it will stay that way.
Alpha is like beta, only a lot more so. It's more likely to crash. Stuff is probably not implemented at all yet. Placeholders may abound.
Every developer uses the terms a little bit differently so it's hard to know what to expect... but your experience in alpha will NOT be a smooth, polished game.
The alpha may just be the zoomed out galactic map screen, without the fancy graphics. Like Elemental.
Each dev has their own interpretation or demarcation of Alpha/Beta. As a 'general-really-vague' rule
Alpha - Game is in some kind of playable form. Place holder art/music/sounds might be used. Core features may not yet be implemented or broken in some way. Game design and features might change from version to version depending on community feedback. Game may not be well optimized and may run slowly or crash at times.
Beta - "Generally" speaking major features are locked at this point although minor 'tweaks' can be made to specific features. Emphasis is generally on game balance, bug squashing, and optimization.
tl;dr Alphas are REALLY broken, Betas are SLIGHTLY broken
Well, Civilization game always change. Don't you know it? Just play it from the first Civilization game. From Civ 3 to Civ 4 to Civ 5, they always made major change to their game. Personally, I prefer Civilization 3 to Civilization 4, but it just me. And I like Civilization 5 compared to Civilization 4. But it also just me.
Hi there! Oh those were the days!
GalCiv for OS/2 was early months of 1993.
I don't know exactly how the Alpha version of GalCiv III will be. Probably very buggy. But I suspect it'll be more playable than our traditional betas were. The AI will probably be pretty weak. But I would expect multiplayer to be pretty solid and at least the Terran Alliance tech tree reasonably fleshed out. Just my opinion though at this point.
I don't think that's the case for our community. Our communities are barely moderated and they're extremely friendly, intelligent and supportive for the most part.
To be fair to the Civ V team (who, ironically, I work with as part of Oxide), Take 2 changed their release date and taking away 3 months of development. Civ V today is pretty fun I think.
She's around.
Just to recap:
Almost every new feature we've added is something that I wish we had had in GalCiv II. Some of it is so obvious that it's embarrassing. Some things are tiny like, for instance, making it easier to have symetrical elements in ship design. Others have to do with the United Planets and diplomacy.
Next time you load up GalCiv II, you can kind of tell the kinds of things that we should have had in there but realistically cuoldn't because of the crummy UI it had (no tool tips). But imagine the kinds of improved mechanics you can have if the UI communicates the consequences of those mechanics clearly to players.
In hindsight, GalCiv II was a bit dumbed down because the UI was so limited in what it could convey. Therefore, we had to limit the kinds of depth it had because it would have been a mess trying to convey that to the player.
I'm not sure if I'm explaining that very well. Do you guys know what I'm trying to say here?
Yes, yes I (we?) do.
Is that to say that GC3 is also a bit more...complicated?
Listen, I just fired up GC2 tonight for the first time in years. It's still fantastic. I'm just not sure what's....missing. Obviously, the one screenshot I've seen on the "Game" tab is reason to get excited, but what kind of things are obviously missing that GC3 will bring?
When can we get some actual screenshots, anyway?
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