PCGamesN has a great Galactic Civilizations 3 article up where they talk to Stardock CEO Brad Wardell and GC3 Lead Designer Paul Boyer.
"Reading between the lines of an interview with Galactic Civilizations designer Paul Boyer and Stardock CEO Brad Wardell, they seem a little anxious about maintaining the values that made Galactic Civilizations II the best game Stardock ever developed. They return a lot to the theme of their own naivete in the mid-2000s, the fact that they did some things with GalCiv 2 because they didn’t know any better, and stumbled into some magic."
Read more...
http://www.pcgamesn.com/galactic-civilizations-3-preview-were-making-galciv-2-we-always-wanted
Pretty much this. It's why I didn't buy the game so far. That, and fear that it will launch like Elemental did.
Yeah I'd have to agree with this - sequels rarely see ground up innovation, mostly incremental. The ones that try to re-invent themselves from ground-up invariably mess up. See SOTS2 and MOO3 for examples.
Only thing I really wanted to see was tactical combat, some greater variety between races, and a better designed tech tree system.
Actually, I think MOO3 belongs in another category. Someone bought the rights to the MOO series and re-built it, hence it didn't have the guidance of the original creator.
Well if I understand one thing right about this game is that they were trying a new kind of game Role playing games. While Galactic civilizations started out in 1992 right. If I'm right this is none thing new where elemental was. Even if I'm wrong about this they did create a new department for elemental, and since then redesigned on how they make games. All this tells me that Galactic civilizations is not like elemental. Quoting Fate, reply 24 Yeah I'd have to agree with this - sequels rarely see ground up innovation, mostly incremental. The ones that try to re-invent themselves from ground-up invariably mess up. See SOTS2 and MOO3 for examples.
You can quote this they said that if you didn't like Galactic civilizations 2 you wont like this game. I would be disappointed if when this game came out it was something else than Galactic civilizations.
Quoting Fate, reply 24
Only thing I really wanted to see was tactical combat, some greater variety between races, and a better designed tech tree system. [/quote]
Two out of three aint bad.
Well I think the changes sound good. i trust that Stardock knows what they are doing. I wouls like to hear what other changes are made.
Actually my biggest fear with GC3 is the MOO3 syndrome.
MOO2 is one of the best, if not the best, space 4X ever, but they screwed up with MOO3 by changing too much.
GalCiv2 is one of the best, if not the best, space 4X ever, don't screw up GalCiv3 by changing too much.
All I keep reading is about how fundamental parts of the game are going to be different.
I also see a lot of forum posts from people who want this and that - usually something very different from what GalCiv is at all. I don't understand why some of these people even play GC (or their just trolls or people who feel compelled to post nonsense just to post something).
GalCiv II still stands today as a very strong game. Deviating too much could be a MOO3-esque disaster.
Hopefully one big difference will be that Stardock will have a huge alpha with a ton of feedback so if they're totally screwing things up, they'll hear about it early.
Stardock has anything to prove that third part is not necessary worst, and they kinda walked their talk with Elemental (no personal experience, but we got remake, no?).
I'm not overly worried about that. Look at the screenshots, the types of discussions going on here. It's not going to re-invent everything. It's mostly an incremental update and newer graphics.
Only real concern is that the game is stable on launch and Elemental's tragedy is not repeated.
The Dev's are keenly aware of the pitfalls to avoid on their flagship game after Elemental's disaster, but I imagine stability won't be an issue after a thorough Alpha and Beta cycle!
What I learnt from being in the GalCivII community from launch is that Stardock is very, very good at gauging whether an outcry from users for certain features is the desire of the small outspoken minority or actually the silent majority. Every damned week there would be at least one new thread demanding carriers or multi-player in the game and it would just get worse as soon as a new expansion was announced, but the dev's stuck firm to their vision of what the game should be and produced a gem. I have every confidence with Frogboy, Island Dog and Abiessener still regular faces on the boards that this will remain to be the case!
Fate,
!?!? People!? Seriously!?
The point being made is that the tech tree is pretty different from Civ 5. Now look at how you go through Civ 5's tech tree. Nine out of ten times you're going to pick one of the cheapest ones. You can skip a technology temporarily to jump ahead and get something you really need but you'll be forced to go back and get that tech pretty soon because some other tech will depend on it. It's really just one tree.
Here you are talking actual treeS. You figure out what you want your empire to do well and you put more investment in those trees and leave the others weak. A "jack of all trades" empire would be the person who just picks the cheapest technology to research no matter what the situation is. Have ANY of you done that in either Gal Civ game? Has it even OCCURED to you to try to play that way?? In Civ 5 (and Endless Space to a lesser extent), that's what you do most of the time. Here, won't be. That's what the article is saying.
P.S. And SotS 2 ain't half bad now. Plus it has carriers.
Things that would previously been alignment based tech are now part of the ideology trees. Looking back, it seems...odd that we were researching culture.
Well I guess if the change was to increment what is already there than that is fine. If the change is to change the game then they should reconsider if the change is good or not. I mean some changes like more factions would be good. I usually play with a 13 turn limit on my techs; unless there is no tech worth researching.
Looks nice. I just hope the depth is maintained, nothing "dumbed down", like they did with Civ V, compared to Civ IV. With "dumbed down", I mean "made accessible for a broader imaginary audience that might or might not exist", of course. Those new Hexes makes me sort of nervous. But only a little. It is like a greater "game cultural influence" you know? You wonder if something "flipped over". As long as it stays true to itself we should pretty much be safe though. Just don't re-invent the audience and then make the game? We're pretty much the same as always. Just a bit harsher to the kids disturbing the lawn! He he!
Regarding the tech trees: I see a lot of people who assume that there is some kind of 'specialization' mechanic, but there's no statement to that effect -- just a simple comment that researching everything will leave you as a jack of all trades, master of none. And that that status will hurt.
This effect could also easily be achieved by simply removing the concept of 'diminishing returns' from the tech tree -- usually embodied as the concept that each level of tech costs more than the level that came before it. Or, better yet, have a 'growing returns' mechanic, where the delta of the effectiveness between each level gets stronger as you go further up the tree. Suddenly, the choice between grabbing diplomacy 1 or warmongerer 2 becomes a lot more interesting, and the further you go up the warmongerer tree, the less diplo 1 (or 2) looks like a good idea.
Lets wait and see how they're going to impliment things before we make decisions based on partial information.
I think the confusion point is that the rate at which the game was selling went up, which is extremely counter-intuitivie after years and years of sales. The market should have been saturated, with everyone who would have been interested having already bought it. (The rate at which 'new' 4X players 'evolve' into the market should also be static, unless something weird is going on). Personally, I wonder if the announcement of GalCiv3 had the same effect as an advertising campaign.
Do you remember how it went with the Star Wars series? When they were about ready to release the first sequil (episode 5), they re-released the original (episode 4) which had great attendance. Likewise for episode 6, both episodes 4 and 5 were re-released and had great attendance. Other movie series have done likewise and had good success.
With GC3, in my case, when I received the email about it being developed, I jumped on the bandwagon quickly. Then, while reading the forums I discovered Steam had GC1 and 2 available, and that both of them were newer than my copies. I had missed some of the updates. So I went onto Steam and bought them. I have seen hints in the forum that I wasn't the only one doing so.
So, RonLugge, I have strong suspicions that you are correct about the effect the announcement of GC3 had on recent sales.
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