Most strategy games these days have been totally dumbed down to appeal to the average gamer. I sincerely hope it wont be that way with this game. Hoping for even more complexity than GAL CIV 2. Does anyone know in what ways this game will be either more complex or dumbed down compared to the previous game?
"The term dumbing down describes the deliberate diminishment of the intellectual level of the content of schooling and education, of literature and cinema, and of news and culture." - wikipedia
Obviously, you already know that when a developer 'streamlines' a game, the hope is for more sales. Granted I haven't seen much evidence to support this statement.
I have three questions for you.
1.) Who are you to get in the way of a companies profit?
2.) Your post gives the impression that at least for you, complex = fun. How did you develop this enlightening attitude?
3.) What is it about streamlined games that caused you to make this post today? Or rather, does the idea of people you've deemed not worthy of your superior intellect that play the same game as you, bother you?
There hasn't been enough detail to really answer that well. Combat is more complicated with more stats involved. Not much else in detail about other systems has been released.
What caused me to make this post was a trend these days to dumb down games when they should be getting deeper and more complex, a trend that strips a game of all its character just to turn a quick profit and appeal to the masses. The Elder Scrolls Series, The Total War Series, the Dragon Age series, the list goes on and on and on. I love Gal Civ 2 and want to see Gal Civ 3 become deeper, more detailed in its systems. Deeper diplomacy, more input into combat, more input into economy. Having a deeper game doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be more complex to manage. It has been a long time since Gal Civ 2 was released after all So far the devs seem to be going in a awesome direction, and if they expand on the depth of the last game me and about 6 other friends will be purchasing it for multiplayer
Well streamlining means in programming to make the programs more efficient. I'm sorry they already said they are using bigger buses, they are making the game faster, and they are using all the threads so I guess it's too late they have already streamlined the game.
If you been reading the game all I suggested eliminating redundancies. If you have ideas I think you should list them instead of only making vague references.y
I think in some ways that complexity could mean more fun while I don't think that doing the same thing a million times during a turn when the computer didn't even need to show me the redundancy. Automated governors is kind of dummying down the game. This is why it should be an option. Only some games I would use automations when I got tired of certain things. I would think global is dummying down that why a choice between global and local is not a game option, but a in game mechanic. But why would you want to do something umteen million times when it is redundant except a hut handful of times. This is why I want it an in game option not at the beginning.
Complexity is what I like about Galactic civilizations, b you there is not need for redundancy when you could tell the computer how to do that.
Can you ou specify what you are talking about if you specify what you are talking about if would help like what you are talking about what you want to keep in the game that is as specific as possible. I wouldn't want to see any real dummying down the game without changing it back in an in game concept.
With the exception of sleepyx732, I don't think anybody has suggested dumbing down the game.
Most suggestions here have been for new things, like tactical combat, expanding on existing things, or making certain things more user-friendly, like the tech tree, and starbases.
The whole reason I bought founder's elite is because I wanted something with at least as much depth as galciv2! If I wanted something simple and shallow, I would be playing [generic 4x space game].
Note that I said depth, not complexity, I am all for making the interface easier to understand and use, so long as the underlying systems (economic, combat, politics, etc.) are still there. My point is, depth is good, complexity is not the same as depth, I am more than willing to learn a complex interface, but I don't really care one way or the other, so long as the meat of the game is still present.
Extra credits did an excellent video on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL4st0blGU
Of courses, hardcore fans (like myself) want more complexity. Regular and casual players, on the other hand, want something that is accessible.
Now, which of these two groups have more money?
I hope stardock wont go the way of Blizzard.
Imagine auction and bad loot drop rate.
Look I love Alpha Centauri. It's an awesome game
But dear god that games NEEDS STREAMLINING. The UI is mind numbing and too much click micro.
"Streamline" != "making the game stupid"
It's about making each choice a meaningful chioce, instead of giving you 100 stupid choicses that have no clear consequence. Having more junk to do, doesn't make the game more 'complex' it just makes it 'complicated'
Yeah I would have to agree with that - by 2014 standards, the UI and graphics are out of date.
SOTS2 would be an example of "having more junk to do" for the sake of adding complexity. A good game has to have in depth choices with meaningful differences on what happens.
The problem has often been that people have complained about "being forced" to do something, and then things get automated, or simply removed, which in turn leaves you with too little to do. The level of possible interaction must stay high, or else you end up as a passive observer, rather than an active manipulator.
With passitivity comes the question of interactivity, or lack thereof. There must be something to do, all the time, or else what use has the game for a player!
I was at first sceptical about the change/removal of the sliders, but I guess you can tweak the same things with the new interface solution. But then again, if you could do it much easier and faster, what to do with that extra spare time? That is the real question!
I think it depends on the kind of game play experience the player expects.
There are people who want to 'micro manage' their empire. Control every bell and whistle, tweak every dial.
There are others who prefer to rule from above, making broad decisions about the direction their Civ is traveling and how.
I suppose the game will attempt to minimize the amount of "Busy work" and focus on letting you make important choices.
Pragmatically, it pays to build systems that 80% of your player base will actually use. Sure, it sucks if you're the 20% who are the exception.. but that's where modding comes in.
I am of the opposite opinion. While I agree that it shouldn't be dumbed down to the point of it becoming a more casual type of game, I would certainly like it more accessible. Some people are intrigued by the notion of building their own empire, but we're not all number crunchers who like to play via spreadsheet UIs. So while I'm all for complexity of the rules built into the game, make it easier for people so see the cause and affect of these rules, and easier ways to govern their civilizations.
The funny thing is that there's lots of opportunity to make the game more accessible without really changing mechanics, just by improved UI and information delivery. Take the sliders. People love sliders for some reason, but multiple sliders *suck horribly* as a modern UI. The new UI control they showed is vastly better at conveying the same thing as several sliders.
I'm with you on this. Complex mechanics are good, but complex mechanics backed by a strong UI so it's easy to see what will happen when you do something is even better.
In my own Civ games when they used to have Governor AI to do things. I would always micro manage the hell out of the city FIRST. Get it to wehre I needed it to be, then just let the AI Governeors do what I had designed the city to do. This allowed me to more concentrate on my capitals and the death war machine, I mean 'totally non-aggressive self-defense-force-so-dont-worry-ai-opponents'.
I have no problems with the AI doing teh boring mundane stuff which gets quite tedious in a gigantic 'totally non-aggressive' empire.
This is kind of funny because I always thought that GC's biggest advantage was that it was kind of streamlined and dumbed down in relation to other 4X games. A lot of times 4x games are practically shrines to bloated complexity, but GC has done a very good job keeping it's complexity very trim.
I originally siggested automating things to speed things up on request. For the current governor settings I would shut them off if they were global. I want to control how the computer does things, so I want more governor optons suggested Que's to take some of the redundancy out of the game. Not to change h0w the game works. I wouldn't support any automated option unless there was a way to shut it off, so if you aren't doing enough you can turn it on.
Question is the fact there is nonething to do at the beginning or end. I'm constantly micromanaging every turn.
I don't want to turn this game into sim city .
I turn governors off in civilization because they don't play the way I want to. They usually want to build up when I want to explore or do science.
I agree more complexity is good depending on what it is. If we are having people decide on what kind of food to grow on a farm. I would find this silly, but if we wanted to add an option for multiple factions to share tech research then this is a good idea. Complexity for the sake of complexity is not good. Not worrying about making the game too complex is a good idea. I'm in support in making an easier interface. I'm in support of giving me ways of eliminating redundancy without losing control. I'm in support of having automated governors for people who want to cut down on micromanaging as long as I could shut them off. I'm not talking on a per planet basis, but a way to do this at once globally.
I'm talking about streamlining the game. This is probably dummying down the game. I want to eliminate redundancy not control. I in support of making it more complex as long as it doesn't slow down the game to much. I'm in support of making things more complex as long as being more complex changes the way I can play the game.
If you can't find things to do are one of those people who don't build anything until you have 2 billion people. The answer to that is start building infrastructure and control your production and approval.
GalCiv III is substantially more complex the GalIv II. Three quick examples:
1. united Planets now involves proposing bills rather than voting on random items.
2. Planetary improvements have adjacency bonuses.
3. there is now an ideology pyramid for shaping your civilization.
Remember Wardell Day!
Stop teasing me! RAWR!
Supreme commander (of more recent examples) style?
Sex-bomb, sex-bomb...
Great to hear that! This is awesome!!!
I completely agree with AdmiralWillyWilbur here- more complex game ideas and mechanics are a general good thing. I think that excessive dumbing-down has been the bane of gaming for the last five years has been the tentative, wet-knickers type of attitude the mainstream corporations have been dipping their toes into developing games designed for wide audiences- and am thoroughly pleased to see long playerbases thoroughly lost to those companies for their fallacy. The X franchise, the C&C lineage, Wargaming- all companies that could be doing much better if they remembered who they were selling to. Galactic Civilisations has been blessed with a relatively large niche of loyal gamers, and I hope that Stardock continues its customary habit of making games that are well received by those loyal customers, and not messing around trying to please everyone, which inevitably fails.
I didn't think the old UI was too bad, but I'm fairly tolerant to this myself. What was a little unpleasant was the small amount of real customising and the little of it that was supported by the game engine. More weapons, defenses, and methods of using them, and fully displaying these changes in-engine, would be awesome. I kinda don't like seeing only my first two lasers firing. More hulls and a more free-form but still easy ship design system would also be nice. An experience system with a few more effects, too, would be great.
But anyway- on behalf of the old-market loyalists in the crowd- PLEASE DON"T TRY TO MAKE A ALL-DEMOGRAPHICS FAMILY GAME WITH THIS GAME. We all thank you in advance. it won't work, and you'll piss a lot of people off trying, trust me. And here's hoping for a lot of new, complicated things to learn in the new game!
Ehm... If Wargaming at least has a lot of crispy banknotes to swim in and has popular franchise(s), X-universe and C&C are, indeed, "sank" into... hmm...
Oh yes this excites me too. Particularly if they manage to make it work a little smoother then how it dose in Civ 5. Oh and have a lot of different bills.
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